RANDOM LISTS
(pinning this post for easy editing access)
THINGS THEY SHOULD INVENT JUST FOR ME
1. "no u-turns" setting on google maps. they already have avoid tolls and avoid highways. personally i hate u-turns, they make me so mad
2. spotify song repeat setting where instead of looping the same one song consecutively, i can shuffle a playlist but the song im repeating plays every *other* song. like. i dont need to hear it over and over anymore but i am in the phase where when a different song ends im thinking "i miss my current obsession song, wish it was playing next"
THINGS EVERY OPENER AT A CONCERT SHOULD DO
1. play a cover song!!! just one! this show isnt about you. its about how you make the audience feel. they need to remember singing along and having a good time
2. make it seem like youre reeeally good friends with the headliner, even if its not true. the fans want to perceive proximity between you and the things they like
3. give one semi-personal explanation for a song. dont overdo it. but give them a lil bit of emotional buy-in to remember when they go home and look you up
4. at least one sing along. different from a cover. teach the audience a call-and-response for one of your own songs. give them a structured task!!! they want to participate!!! ideally do this earlyish in the set so they warm up a lil by the end. a stomp-clap situation works too
THINGS OPENERS AT CONCERTS SHOULD NEVER DO
1. over-explain the meaning behind a song. shut up and get to the point. nobody cares about you
2. sing a ballad. so boring. everyone is already just standing there. you want them to just stand there some more?
3. "you guys have never heard of us" or any other version of negative self talk. if you treat yourself like a loser, the audience will think youre a loser
IDEAL SEQUENCING OF SONGS FOR OPENERS
1. second most popular song
2. any song you want
3. sing along or stomp clap song
4. new song you want people to care about
5. cover song
6. personal story song
7. most popular song
UNHINGED ACTIONS PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN TOWARDS ME SINCE I BECAME SINGLE IN NOVEMBER
1. the "i love my wife" enby whos been married for 13 years to their hs sweetheart, codependently
- tried to unicorn me and lure me into dating/fucking their ugly standoffish wife after a month of us talking and flirting on an individual basis
- called me "one of their favorite people" and thanked me for "making space for them in my life" after 3 weeks of us talking and one night at the club
- bargained with themselves in real time about the state of their relationship when i told them i refuse to date them and their wife together
2. the "i hate my wife" enby who i work together with at a nonprofit/youth summer camp, who i cannot stress enough, is still legally (monogamously) married with 3 young children!!!
- invited me on their 4-day work trip to an undesirable location where genuinely the only activity available would be hanging out in the evening and doing night hikes, one-on-one
- responded to my work-related question with a selfie of them in a small inflatable pool in their backyard, with a toddler in the background, saying "its warm enough outside now that we can cowork from the pool if you want"
- fully BEGGED me to hang out after a tense meeting where i just wanted to stay at home. offered to drive 40 minutes to me on a tuesday night at 8pm when they work at 5am. walked around a park for hours with me that night
- hinted repeatedly, both over text and in group settings in front of other people, that they wanted me to come over while their wife and kids were out of town. texted me one night offering me twizzlers, then complained that i "ghosted" them bc i didnt reply until the next day
- comments (continuously) weird things about my ass. once said theyre surprised im cold all the time bc my giant ass should keep me warm???
- went from bothering me almost every day to not talking to me at all the second they started "working on things" with their wife
- relatedly, texting me that they miss me and we should hang out soon the same week that their wife was flying to another country bc her dad literally died
- apologized over text for venting to me about their wife too much but completely neglected to apologize for all the aforementioned weird/inappropriate behaviors towards me. also casually dropped that my ex was gonna be living with them???
3. the transfemme baddie who i'll admit i did openly pursue, but with the explicit explanation that i will NOT enter a relationship literally ever. she said we can "just vibe"
- went from saying "my poems are too personal to share" to writing love poems *about me* while on a solo weeklong beach trip, and immediately reading them to me when she got home from said trip
- cried bc i gave her a personalized gift
- dropped off a care package when i was sick that definitely took the better part of an afternoon to assemble
- wrote me a postcard that said "its beautiful here. maybe next time i come here, i'll take you with me?"
- wrote MORE poems about me during a month where we weren't really talking to each other very much, after having created emotional distance between us with her own words and actions. told me she had been "yearning" for me a lot
4. the friend-shaped polyam enby whose nesting partner is literally my childhood best friend who i recently reconnected with
- asked "what are we" after i came to an event i go to relatively often to support them tabling. literally made me pull over the car so they could explain that they "felt a nonplatonic vibe" between us. i cannot stress enough how this was my literal first time hanging out with this person one-on-one
5. the bestie of an acquaintance i went on 3 dates with 3 years ago, who just moved to my city, has no friends and no plans, and is desperate to find sapphic love at all costs
- spent our concert roadtrip together (our first time ever hanging out btw) dumping her entire life story on me with zero breaks or pauses, and repeatedly stressing how shes femme for femme
- took pictures of me at the beach on that roadtrip, then posted a photo dump on instagram at the end of the month where, instead of posting the selfie we took together on the beach that day, posted the pic of me standing in the ocean where the most prominent aspect was my buttcheeks
- texted me every single day for two weeks following that roadtrip, then randomly dropped the bomb on me that she had had a "huge crush" on me since we met, complete with dot dot dot punctuation. i previously did not think she had cared if i live or die based on her emotional underexpressiveness and the way she generally doesnt seem to notice that other people exist while shes talking
- put me (our beach selfie) prominently front and center on her collage phone background, bigger than the photo of her and her longstanding best friend of 12 years
