Your City Gave Me Asthma/Mammalian Sighing Reflex/Maybe I Was Boring something something about struggling to breathe and breathing as reflex and sighing as a reaction to boredom. These albums are siblings I swear I just need to be able to sleep and I can probably explain more comprehensively.
I know other fans like to talk about how aro-coded lovejoy songs are and all that, but I am a firm believer that "It's All Futile! It's All Pointless" is the most aro-coded song of their entire discography.
This is one of my favorites of their songs, and I have analyzed it and am now deciding to share this analysis with tumblr.
This is gonna get long, so everything will be under the cut:
Let's start with Verse One:
To start with, university is seen as this place where you learn more about yourself and find your people and overall discover yourself as an individual. However, despite the idea of finding your own path at university, there are still societal norms that people just expect you to experience.
In our society, romance and sex are two of the most fundamental milestones in a person's life. At university, people expect you to forge romantic relationships and sometimes sexual relationships, and the only (in society's eyes, acceptable) reason to not be doing so is because of focusing on studies. I, for one, expected that I'd inevitably experience some romantic interests at university, before I realized I was aromantic, like, a month before going.
Point is, it's expected, and it's often just treated like a given.
Now, I've seen other people talk about this, but there's very particular word choice with "datelines" and "sextant." Taking a geography course to learn the datelines and maybe use a sextant can also be read as going to university with the expectations of going on dates and maybe having sex (because, for all that sex is considered a societal norm, there's also a lot of stigma around it with purity culture, but that's an entire other discussion).
But sometimes that just doesn't happen. And, this isn't a unique aroace experience (and some aroace people do date or have sex at uni), but the point is that, sometimes, aromantic people go into uni with the same expectations that society tells them to have, and then that doesn't happen. Or it does happen, but it goes badly. Because sometimes self discovery leads to realizing you don't experience these feelings that are so often attributed to being human.
Continuing on, later in this same verse societal expectations are brought up again.
This is essentially just a list of what society tells you adulthood is. This is the future in store for you. There's references to the Nuclear Family dynamic as well—where there are two parents in a romantic relationship and their kids. In the line previous to the one above, the romantic partner is mentioned, so it's safe to picture this as the Nuclear Family model.
But, you'll notice that the line very specifically talks about having to do these things. You have to reproduce. You have to get married and have kids and be in a romantic relationship and maybe have sex, but not too much because, again, society often views sex as something dirty.
But no where is there any indication of wanting this future.
(It should be noted that some aromantic people do want this type of future, and some do not. Aromanticism is defined by little to no romantic attraction, and it is experienced in vastly different ways by different people. There is no one way to aro).
Onto the Pre-Chorus!
Now, this line can be interpreted in different ways, but this post is about looking at this song through the lens of aromanticism, so that's what we're focusing on.
This line is talking about not actually missing the person with whom you've had romantic relations, but, rather, the thought of that romantic relationship.
The thing is, society practically promises kids a happy ending in the form of romance. Romance is the happy ending, and, without it, it's a sad ending. Because of this, there are a lot of aromantic people who feel almost robbed of something that was promised to them. This can lead them to pursuing romantic relationships anyway, even when that's not something that will actually make them happy. So, they're missing the thought of the relationship rather than the person it was with. It's them missing the thought of this promised happy ending.
(Again, there's no one way to be aro, and this is far from everyone's experiences).
Let's quickly jump to the second verse (we'll get to the chorus last—that's my favorite part and the part that you may find most interesting).
These lines very much read to me as specifically an aroallo experience. It's showing preference of the sexual aspect of the relationship rather than the romantic relationship.
But the partner wants that romantic aspect. The partner feels the romantic attraction that an aroallo person might not. So, he's picking a lock he doesn't go into, because this person isn't going to reciprocate those romantic feelings and are more interested in sexual relations. (But it can be difficult to have a no strings attached sexual relationship, especially with alloro people who might fall in love).
Anyway, this line is pretty straight forward to me as an aroallo experience, but feel free to ask for clarification.
The bridge:
This again goes back to society essentially telling people that they'll be unhappy and alone without a romantic relationship.
Being aromantic can be an incredibly isolating experience. Especially when you're at university and you're in a period of such great change within yourself and in those around you. This isn't true for everyone, but being aromantic and seeing everyone around you get into romantic relationships can be scary and can bring forth so many negative emotions.
Because of this, sometimes aro people decide to pursue romantic relationships even if they don't necessarily want to because they feel like they'll be left behind and end up unhappy if they don't.
But it's okay as long as it makes them feel less numb and alone.
Finally, the chorus, which is the most fascinating part imo.
This is the chorus as it appears in Lovejoy's version of "It's All Futile! It's All Pointless!" However, what some people don't know is that there's a slight variation in the original version of the song which was released in 2020 in Wilbur's "Maybe I Was Boring" EP (essentially the songs that didn't make it onto ycgma).
Whilst the chorus is the same the first time it is sung, the second time the chorus is played, there's a change.
Now, on it's own, it may not seem like much.
"Stella! How are you connecting this to aromanticism?" Patience, dear reader.
For the life of me, I cannot find this reddit post where this was originally commented, but Wilbur said that the line was originally supposed to be "it's a strategy to ensure I remain (in love)," but that last bit was never recorded.
However, it is so interesting to me because, yes, it can be interpreted in an allo way, but it can also so easily be interpreted in a number of different aro ways.
Option A) This aromantic person has fallen in love. It's under specific circumstances, it's the exception, whatever, but they want to stay in love. Why? Well, admittedly, sometimes I think it'd be easier to be alloro. Because, as previously mentioned, being aromantic can be such an isolating experience.
Option B) This aromantic person wants to stay under the illusion that they're in love, even if they're not. Why? For the reasons above, or because that way they can feel less broken.
There's a plethora of different reasons why some aro people sometimes want to be in love. And a lot of the time it ties back to society hyping up romance for basically all our lives, and then suddenly being confronted with not getting that. Not to mention the whole relationship hierarchy thing where romance is placed at the very top of the pyramid, and, well, sometimes people just want to be someone's first priority like a romantic partner would be.
Bonus:
There was a stream at one point where some chatter said something along the lines of "us aromantics are going to steal your songs" (I saw this clip in an edit earlier today which inspired me to make this post, but I cannot find the clip on it's own so I haven't included it </3).
Wilbur then goes onto say "you aromantics need to read my lyrics. you should read It's All Futile! It's All Pointless! Figure out what it's about." He of course then went on to briefly mention Perfume and said something about most of his music, but he said iaf!iap! first.
And, honestly, combined with everything in the song itself going all the way back to the original version of the song, I just think it goes to show that this song is the aromantic-coded lovejoy song of them all.
Why do Wilbur's songs have various levels of aro-coding? Idk. Tbh it's probably none of my business. I just think it's neat.
Anyway, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. Please go listen to both Lovejoy's version and the original version of "It's All Futile! It's All Pointless!" and remember to stream wu&io!
(All four songs of Maybe I Was Boring is in one track of the same name on Wilbur Soot's spotify account if you want to listen to the original version of the song).
unironically me watching all of the videos of Wilbur's solo set at Crywank's concert and oh MY GODDDDDDD HE SANG MAYBE I WAS BORING IM ACTUALLY TEARING UPPPPPP
"It's All Futile! It's All Pointless!" guitar tutorial! From Niki and Wilbur's Germany stream back in March 2020. Bringing this back after the YCGMA 1 year anniversary stream for folks who wanted to learn how to play it from Wilbur himself :)
I've been listening to Losing Face and It's all futile! It's all pointless! and I feel like you can tell they were written around the same period of time. They feel angry, and it sounds like the singer is wondering why they can't be good enough for their partner by themselves. But the singer in It's all futile! It's all pointless! will do anything to stay by their partner's side, and won't let go, even if they think they are 'a disease'. In Losing Face, the singer, although angry, is trying to understand why their partner moved on, and in the end, lets go. 'as long as you're happy, I don't care.'
something about the way these songs are so similar and yet so different,,,
