It’s no surprise that my parents disapprove of my singer/songwriter boyfriend, but when my besties started calling his financial situation and all of his personality traits “red flags,” I had to defend our relationship. Like, I know he doesn’t make as much as their boyfriends with their soulless nine to fives, but I like that he’s doing something non-traditional. They clearly don’t understand that his narcissism, depression, and an undying obsession with fame is all part of his journey.
They just need to put positive spins on his not-so-pleasant qualities like I do.
Where they see his fame obsession, I see him striving for greatness. I’ll finally get him out of his home studio to go apple picking, and sure, at first he’ll bitch that anything other than the pursuit of success is frivolous, but once he sees that people love apple picking, he’ll have this eureka moment that an apple-picking song could be his golden ticket! I’ll just want to hold hands and stroll through the orchard, but he’ll be feverishly writing his new apple song on the dashboard. His dastardly grin, like a Bond villain trying to take over the world, is kinda cute.
After the apple picking song, or the beach song, or the cherry blossom song isn’t the singular thing that makes him world-famous, he dips into a weeks-long depression. But that just means he cares deeply. He’ll barely get out of bed, so I’ll feed him, water him, and inflate his ego enough to shower and begin his next plot for world domination. Those times are tough because I’ll have stuff going on in my life, and I’d like his support sometimes too, but he reminds me that I’m being a lot and that he’s going through something real. After realizing that he never listened to my feelings, I told him how many great songs are about feelings. Now I get to vent while he nods along holding a voice recorder in my face.
I don’t think he feels emotions like the rest of us, but he is really good at reminding me to be grateful. Like, I’ll tell him how much I want to quit my soul-crushing, verbally abusive job, but he’ll beg me not to. He reminds me of the salary and benefits, and how this is by far the nicest apartment he’s ever lived in, so I trudge back in there the next day. By paying for absolutely everything now, I’m allowing him the time to hone his craft, which will one day make us millions! Plus, he’ll completely drop the toxic behavior and focus more on our relationship once he achieves his goals, right?!