Last night after I got home from work, I decided to go for a walk. This is something I do more and more of late, possibly because of the slow seasonal change, but I don’t complain. I’ve been lucky enough to excise most television from my life and whatever remnants I had of a social life as well. And sometimes nothing cleans out the cobwebs in your head like headphones full of music and a brisk walk to… Wherever. Nowhere. Everywhere.

As I was coming back last night, I passed by one of my neighbors in front of her house. She’s a young girl, her age being in the vicinity of high school-ish, and she was talking with her boyfriend. I wasn’t really paying attention to them at first and thankfully couldn’t hear them since I had the head phones on and the music blaring, but after a few moments in the slow passing of them I realized that they were having an argument. And not just an argument, the mother of all arguments. And not just the mother of all arguments. They were breaking up. Bitterly. And nastily.

When you’re young and stupid and awkward and think you’re alone in the world, there’s nothing so wonderful as the onset of love. That feeling of some part of yourself starting to resonate in another and the coming together of two souls (take this as either a romantic or sexual metaphor, I don’t care), and that first feeling that life may not be so horrible after all… Ah, there’s nothing like it.

But then you get older and jaded and mean and you know that you’re alone in the world and you take a certain satisfaction watching a relationship end. There’s a certain, sad optimism in it. You smile a little to yourself and you think that suddenly there’s a little extra happiness in this bizarre and amazing world. And hey, these two certainly aren’t using any of that happiness right now so maybe you’ll just snatch it up for yourself.

And I’d really like to thank the music of the Magnetic Fields and Stephen Merritt to be piping through my headphones as I watched the dissolution of that relationship last night. Perfect synergy.

This is the wiki for the 69 Love Songs.

The Magnetic Fields “I Thought You Were My Boyfriend” (mp3)

The Magnetic Fields “Heroes” (David Bowie cover)(mp3)

The Magnetic Fields “Too Drunk To Dream” (mp3)

The Magnetic Fields “The Book Of Love” (mp3)