"Cruel"

STORY

I’ve always been a hopeful romantic. I remember coming home from school in the 2nd grade lamenting the fact that the girl I had a crush on in my class didn’t share my sentiment. Girls never had cooties as far as I was concerned, and I spent countless hours during my childhood fantasizing about all the romantic gestures I’d make to woo a woman when one finally liked me.

I was a late bloomer, and it wasn’t until I graduated high school that I finally landed my first kiss. I came on so strong that first kiss was also our last. For years I would fall head over heels and start gushing from the first date. Flowers, notes, songs… the whole shebang before I really knew who the girl was as a person.

I wanted to believe storybook romance was the secret to relationships. But every time I came running, they’d start running the other way. Meanwhile, I watched asshole after asshole land the girls I had my eye one. The girls I would have treated like royalty. It never seemed fair. I was like a dog chasing it’s tail, trying to catch something that was always just out of reach.

When I met my girlfriend over a year ago, every bone in my body wanted to launch into knight-in-shining-armor mode. Thankfully, I’d been on both the receiving and giving end of heartache enough times to seek guidance before going overboard this time. I ran every romantic gesture by a good friend of mine who would tactfully and firmly tell me to hold off on doing that… for a good three months, LOL.

I complied. Slowly, but surely, we grew our relationship together. I still got to let the romantic in me out, but it wasn’t in a rush. This slow drip made me realize something I hadn’t noticed before.

When I was buying dozens of roses and laying out a picture perfect picnic, I wasn’t being myself. I was being a characterized version of the fairy tales I fell in love with as a kid. It was a part of me, sure, but it wasn’t the day-to-day Marshall they’d need to fall in love with for the relationship to go anywhere. By thinking I was being this perfect suitor, I was actually depriving the girl I liked of getting to know who I truly am as a person.

By starting this relationship off with my default, rather than all the glitz and glamour, I was actually give her more. Authenticity. Vulnerability. Reality.

I still get to do all the romantic stuff I love, but now it’s icing on a cake she knew from date one she liked.

LYRICS

by: Marshall Seese, Jr.

Every time I hear you call my name
I come running to ease your pain
Once you're back on your feet again
You're the one who runs

And it's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me
It's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me

Thought by now I'd have this figured out
All these walls around my heart fell down
And I can't seem to build them up
It never seems to be enough
I try to act so tough but you see right through

You want me in your backseat now
So I get right in get right in
I get right in get right in
You want me in your backseat now
So I get right in get right in
I get right in

And it's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me
It's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me in

Once I'm in I can't get out
All my hope is killed by doubt
I try to howl but there's no sound
I see my tail and spin around (x3)

And it's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me
It's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me

You wake but you never live
You take but you never give
I play but I never win
I could wait but I won't get in

Cause it's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me
It's cruel, so cruel
Cruel to let me back in