I am deeply infatuated with a boy who has made very clear that he wants nothing to do with me. He led me on, and then we finally slept together. What makes it super complicated is that he is in my band and I have to see him all the time and it's breaking my heart, especially when I see him with his girl fans.
I cannot get him out of my mind no matter what I do. He doesn't realize just how perfect for each other we are. Our music is fueled by the tension between us, glances and riff battles do confirm. I could quit the band, but it's going so well.
I already wrote three songs about him, so that outlet doesn't work either. The more depressed I am, the better songs I write, the better we play, the more shows we get, and the more I have to see him.
Don't tell me to get out and see others more; I am five fucks further and I have two other guys now stalking and bothering me. I am lame for falling for someone in my band. It's so NOT rock ‘n' roll. I've also tried a voodoo spell. And drugs.
What else? Help.
What are you talking about, "so NOT rock ‘n' roll?” Do I need to remind you of the twisted, incestual love story that created Fleetwood Mac's Rumors, one of the best-selling, critically acclaimed albums of all time?
As Rolling Stone wrote in 1977, Rumors was born from an "emotional holocaust". Keyboardist Christine McVie and her husband John McVie, the band's bassist, had broken up after eight years of marriage and were not speaking to one another. Plus, Christine had already started a secret affair with the band's lighting guy. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were on the verge of breaking up. Mick Fleetwood was in the midst of a nasty divorce from his wife and was barely talking to his bandmates.
So, they write this album that is all about their crumbling relationships with one another. Buckingham has to harmonize with Nicks on lines he knows she wrote directed at him. She does the same. Buckingham surrounds himself with new girlfriends, trying to distract from the fact that Nicks had dumped him. Once that happens, Nicks loses her cool and retorts. John plays along to a song his ex-wife penned about her new lover and he gets a lump in his throat that won't go away. There's a lot of fighting. There's a lot of tension. Nicks and Fleetwood starts up an affair later on. Everyone is on cocaine. Everyone is heart broken and pretending. Everything is turmoil, but turmoil makes for great rock ‘n' roll. Rumors is a smash hit that elevates the band to major rock stars. At least now they can afford separate limos.
Voodoo spells only work if you are 13-years-old and the come down from drugs usually erases any euphoria of the high. Writing songs about this dude is your best choice, but it's only a form of harm reduction. It will release you for a moment, but then you have to sing that song for as long as the band exists, reminding yourself that you fucked your bandmate and he rejected you. Eventually, the words will reform to mean something new but only when you get over this. Trust me, you will get over this.
Your bandmate is not right for you. If he was, you would have continued to have sex and maybe develop a romantic relationship. All rejection hurts, but romantic or sexual rejection is a huge heartburn. It fucking kills, but it's part of life. It's necessary to being human. All the greatest songs are about it. (That, and of course, Satan.)
That feeling you get when you see him flirt with fangirls will go away. It's not going to fade fast, but I promise you it will. You only want to be with him because he does not want to be with you. The pain you feel is coming from a very basic, instinctual part of your brain. He is the cocaine and you have yet to detox. The first step is rehab.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about romantic rejection was from my hippy dippy neighbor Renee. I was devastated over a break-up I knew was coming, but when I actually got dumped, it bulldozed me so hard I turned into dirt. I was a fucking mess. While sitting on Renee's couch, drunk, crying and shaking, thoughts of my ex taking over my head like a migraine, she said to me, "You have to remember that time is going to heal this. You feel horrible right now, but that feeling is not forever. In three months you'll start to think about him less. And in six months, even less. Then, eventually you will become indifferent and just look back at the memory as something that just kind of happened." Then, I went and wrote a bunch of songs.
I don't know what it's like to have to stare at someone who rejected me while on stage beside them. My guitar player is like my brother and romance has never been an issue. The unfortunate thing about your situation is that you can not do the one thing you are supposed to do after being rejected by someone you liked: separate yourself from them so you can move on. You took a big, gross shit right where you eat and now you have to deal with the food poisoning you gave yourself.
"It was a little lonely there for a while," Buckingham told Rolling Stone of his break-up with Nicks. "The thought of being on my own really terrified me. But then I realized being alone is really a cleansing thing... as I began to feel myself becoming more myself again."
I know a guy I'm going to call Larry. He played in a band with four of his best friends for nearly a decade. A few years back, he found out that his wife had been having an affair, for years, with his bandmate, his best friend. His life was crumbling. The band was set to go on tour, and Larry said to his bandmate, "You destroyed my marriage and our friendship but I'm not letting you take my band from me." And he toughed it out and did the tour. I have such admiration for that.
I know you feel like an idiot, but you are not. You are just a person who developed a crush on someone who decided that he did not feel the same way. Shit happens and yours happened all over your dinner plate. Now, you have a choice to make. You can continue to make yourself miserable and pine after someone who does not feel the same way, or you can snap into self-aware mode, realize that this is not the end of the world, and slowly accept the fact that he does not feel the way you do. In fact, you probably don't even feel the way you do, but romantic rejection turns us into crazy, desperate, lovesick fools. Your ego is a huge bitch when she gets her ass kicked.
You and your bandmate make music together. That is much more unique and special than a romance. You did not work out sexually, but you clearly have a strong bond when on stage and in the studio, so don't let that go because of sex.
You got this.
Love,
Mish
