There is no phenomenon–no matter what anyone says–that could possibly be stranger than becoming a stranger…to the person you were once closest in the world to, the one you thought could never possibly turn their back on you after having seen all your flaws and then, after apparently only briefly accepting them, deciding that it would be best to just move along and attempt to find someone less faulty (whether emotionally or physically–as in, you know, like a docile Aryan or Asian).
The trend of lamenting this bizarre human tendency toward simply ignoring the past and all that it once meant in the quicksand that the present dissolved into is nothing new in the realm of songwriting–in fact, it is one of the topics most rife for any pop song exploring heartache. The kind that always inevitably shoots to the top of the charts as a result of the subject matter being one of the most identifiable to the human condition. The loss each and every one of us experiences at some point or another in our romantic lives. Or even our equally as bullshit platonic ones.
Like “We Don’t Talk Anymore” (being an offshoot of the now completely unlistenable “Somebody That I Used to Know“) or, more recently Robyn’s “Missing U,” the xx’s “Sunset” from 2012’s Coexist explores the inexplicable tendency people have to simply extract themselves full-stop from another intimate’s life as opposed to bothering with a presumably lukewarm in-between dynamic that neither borders fully on lover or friend (because why do anything if it’s only halfway?). The xx vocalist Romy Madley Croft, who admitted to wanting to write more personal lyrics for their sophomore record, sings with great lament, “I saw you again, it felt like we had never met/It’s like the sun set in your eyes and never wanted to rise/And what have you done with the one I love?” This notion of the person you knew ceasing to exist takes on the nature of something almost sci-fi, as though they have been body snatched in favor of pursuing a new (though not necessarily better) life without you. Some might call that the “natural order” or “just the way it is,” but, in all honesty, is it? Does it really have to be? Changing and “growing” (to use one of the grossest words in the realm of cliche) is, in fact, probably more meaningful when it’s done with someone who has known you for a long period, a period over which they could fully appreciate and respect all the ways in which you’ve improved, “blossomed” (to one-up the grossness of the word “growth”).
But no, rejection at its most complete is far more desirable–or somehow more facile–to the average being, who, to use a term from Marie Calloway, will only inwardly ask, “What purpose did I serve in your life?” before possibly answering the question for themselves and then moving on without another thought. For a cold emotional death blow is always easier than prolonging the severed tie. The excision of oneself from another’s life.
Croft, accordingly, ruminates, “I always thought it was sad/The way we act like strangers/After all that we had/We act like we had never met.” And so it must be, for once you’ve known someone–seen inside of them, for all intents and purposes–all you can do when it’s over is look past them as though they are transparent, invisible–for what else is there left to see? So it is that Croft rehashes, “I always thought it was a shame/That we have to play these games/It felt like you really knew me/Now it feels like you see through me.” Then again, maybe this entire relationship–its so-called import and “meaning”–was all in the injured party’s head. For who among us doesn’t have erotomania at this point when considering it’s fairly well-known that nothing means anything to anyone? (see: the accepted and encouraged rise in the term “ghosting” as a method of false and paltry explanation for a disappearance).
