I thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me how do I feel?
Tell me now, how do I feel?
I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today
When I was 16, I was in love with a girl called Maddie who didn’t know I existed.
No, wait a second, there are certain parts of that
sentence I need to qualify...
1. Was I in love? Do we truly know what love is at 16 years of age? Does our brain ever truly know what love is?
Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is
Love is an emotion we primarily link to our hearts, perhaps because our heart beats faster when we see the person we love. Except it’s only doing that because that’s what our brain told it to do.
The Neat - Hormones In Action (In My Heart)
Here’s Professor Timothy Loving from the University of Texas. Yes, that is his real name. Yes, that’s the primary reason I’m quoting him.
Part of the whole attraction process is strongly linked to physiological arousal as a whole. Typically, that's going to start with things like increased heart rate, sweatiness and so on.
Spiritualized - I Think I'm in Love
What else does the brain get up to when it thinks it’s in love?
Healthline tells us...
Simply thinking about the object of your affections is enough to trigger dopamine release, making you feel excited and eager to do whatever it takes to see them.
Then, when you actually do see them, your brain “rewards” you with more dopamine, which you experience as intense pleasure.
I could go on, but putting aside adolescent hormones and teenage notions such “being in love with love”, or as Donny put it…
…I think it’s fair to say I was getting a fair few dopamine hits whenever I saw this girl, spent time with her, or thought about her. Doesn’t sound quite so romantic, that, does it?
2. Was she actually called Maddie? Well, her name was Madeline, and that was how she referred to herself. I never heard anyone else call her Maddie, but I did on occasion. Did I do this as a sign of affection? Clearly. Was it actually what she wanted? I’m not sure.
The reason I called her Maddie (and possibly one of the reasons I was so “in love” with her) is because I was obsessed with the TV show Moonlighting at the time, and its main characters were David (Bruce Willis) Addison and Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) Hayes. I didn’t particularly fancy Cybill Shepherd, and “my” Maddie looked nothing like her, but David and Maddie had a whole “will they / won’t they” thing going on, and in my head I was confusing fantasy with reality, as teenagers are wont to do. The other thing that happened in Moonlighting was that David Addison occasionally broke the fourth wall, and seemed at times to be aware that he was a character in a TV show. This notion appealed to me greatly, and together with my mate Richard, we regularly talked about our own lives as though they were episodes of a TV show. Actually, this was an idea I’d been working on throughout my childhood – in my head, I had my own TV station (one that switched over to being just a radio station when I went to bed… it was complicated). This might seem like irrelevant information, but you’ll need to know it later. There will be a quiz.
3. Clearly Maddie did know I existed since we had regular
conversations, mostly on the long bus journey home where we would often sit together – well,
not together on the same seat, but usually on adjacent seats. And when we got
off the bus, those conversations would often continue while I walked her home –
well, we were going in the same direction, and I carried on up the hill after
she’d crossed the road to go into her own house. Were both of these situations led
by me? I mean, did she ever choose to sit by me or was she always on the bus
when I got on with empty seats in her vicinity? Was I merely preferable to some
of the other losers and malcontents on that bus? Did she secretly want to walk
up that hill on her own but she was just being polite when I tagged along?
Looking back, I might think that. I certainly
manufactured situations in which we could bump into each other or be in the
same place together, but that’s what you do at that age, isn’t it? The whole
thing’s a minefield, and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with it any more. In my
defence, I will offer the rainy lunchtimes we spent together in the music
block, practicing our instruments. (Not a euphemism.) She played piano better
than me, and some other kind of wind instrument (clarinet?) while I had my
tenor horn and we would, on occasion, hang out in one of the practice rooms, mucking
about with music, but mostly just chatting and having a laugh.
(I should perhaps at this point reveal that, about a year or so later, my friend Simon got so sick of me going on about Maddie that he went to ask her if she’d like to go out with me. Because clearly I was never going to do such a thing myself. I was great at dropping hints, but no way was I going to approach her directly. So anyway, Simon asked her out for me… and what ensued? Only one of those awful, embarrassing (for everyone) sitcom scenarios in which Maddie actually thought that Simon was asking her out for himself (rather than me), excitedly accepting, only to then… well, you can guess the rest.)
The Brilliant Corners - Why Do You Have to Go Out With Him When You Could Go Out With Me?
OK, I know what you’re thinking. HOW THE HELL DOES ALL THIS EXPLAIN WHY YOU HATE NEW ORDER!?!
Apologies for the whole Ronnie Corbett bit. I’m getting there.
You just can't believe me
When I show you what you mean to me
You just can't believe me
When I show you what you cannot see
New Order - Confusion
In my previous Self-Help For Cynics Post, I wrote about the Storytelling Brain. How the brain uses stories to create neural pathways which teach us how to deal with things that happen to us in our lives. This appears to be a wonderful thing… until it goes wrong. And when it does go wrong, those same neural pathways end up reinforcing negative opinions, beliefs or ideas based on responses to negative experiences. Dr. Faith explains, in her own inimitable style…
But clearly the storytelling brain has the capacity to be a serious fucking problem too. We start telling ourselves (and believing) certain stories about ourselves and the world around us. Our brains are wired to crave certainty. We WANT to see patterns in what happens to us so we can make better decisions about the world and how we are supposed to keep ourselves safe in it.
The emotional brain makes a decision for us and the thinking brain has to scramble to come up with a reason why.
Which brings me back to the will-they / won’t-they romance in my 16 year old brain.
The Donnas - Do You Wanna Go out with Me?
It was the end of term. Or, in the TV station of my head,
it was the last episode of the series. Everything was building up to a climax,
because that’s what happens at the end of a series. On our final journey home
together before the holidays, I got up the courage to clumsily drop the biggest
hint so far to Maddie that I was interested in being a little more than
friends. The ironic thing is, I have very little memory of what I actually
said, I only recall that it went as well as it could have done (no outright
rejection, anyway… then again, clearly she didn’t swoon into my arms either)
and that I was left with a distinct feeling that when I saw her again… maybe…
we’d be ready to move up to the next level. Like, I dunno, actually sitting
together on the same seat or something.
As a result, I walked home that night in a state of
euphoria. Which is all in the brain, again! Healthline
explains…
That giddy, euphoric excitement you feel when spending time with the person you love (or seeing them across the room, or hearing their name)? You can trace this entirely normal effect of falling in love back to the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Glasvegas - Euphoria, Take My Hand
Ah, that pesky dopamine again. I’m surprised it took me so long to get to that little critter. Harvard Health goes into more detail…
Dopamine is most notably involved in helping us feel pleasure as part of the brain’s reward system. Sex, shopping, smelling cookies baking in the oven — all these things can trigger dopamine release, or a "dopamine rush."
This feel-good
neurotransmitter is also involved in reinforcement. That’s why, once we try one
of those cookies, we might come back for another one (or two, or three).
Hopped up on dopamine following my seemingly successful hint drop, I was keen to share this with my friend Richard, who understood the language of 4th wall breaking imaginary TV shows better than any of my other contemporaries.
A little bit about Richard, before I go on. We’d been
mates for about three or four years by this point, and along with my other mate
Simon, who I’d known since junior school, we’d formed a pretty tight little
group. Best friends? I’m not sure I’ve ever had a best friend, but the three of
us were as close as we could be without ever using that terminology. Although
Simon and I had the longer friendship, and many shared interests, Rich and I
had bonded over a love of music. That began with Queen (particularly A Kind Of
Magic, which was out around then) and classic Motown. Although lately, his
tastes had been changing. He’d become obsessed with the Smiths (who, at the
time, I hated) and the Pet Shop Boys, a band I liked (bought quite a few of
their singles) but clearly didn’t connect with on the same level that he did. I
liked Neil Tennant’s arch lyrics, while Rich liked the beats. It was the
mid-late 80s, and although I didn’t realise it at the time, I was losing him to
dance music.
I don't like country-and-western
I don't like rock music
I don't like, I don't like rockabilly or rock 'n' roll particularly
Don't like much really, do I?
But what I do like I love passionately
On that fateful evening then, I gave him a call to update
him on the end-of-season cliff-hanger involving Maddie… but when he answered
the phone, something was off. There was music playing in the background, and
Rich seemed distracted. As I poured my euphoric heart out, it quickly became
apparent that Rich was only half listening to me, that someone else was there,
and that they were taking up more of his attention. And after a few minutes I
realised that whoever it was, was laughing at me. Laughing at the private
conversation I was having with my friend, at my pathetic attempts at romance,
and that Rich was laughing too.
You call me on the phone, you left me all alone
All I get from you is shellshock
Another day goes by and all I do is cry
All I get from you is shellshock
I stopped and asked Rich what was going on. Who was there
with him? And that’s when he told me.
It was Swanny.
All you need to know about Swanny is that he lived a few doors down from Rich and that he was a complete and utter arsehole. A couple of years prior, he’d indulged (along with a few other kids) in some minor league bullying, of which I was one of his semi-regular marks. And as far as I was concerned, the scars were still fresh.
“What are you doing?” I asked Rich, meaning, “Why are you laughing at me? Why aren’t you being the friend and confidant I’ve come to expect and rely on? Why are you pissing all over my euphoria… with fucking Swanny!?!”
“Nothing,” said Rich. “We’re just listening to the new New Order record.”
I hung up the phone and didn’t speak to Rich again for the next nine months. Eventually Simon managed to get us talking again, and we made up… in a way. But it was never the same.
When I was a very small boy
Very small boys talked to me
Now that we've grown up together
They're afraid of what they see
Thirty-five years later, I still can’t listen to New
Order. This is something which sets me at odds with large sections of the music
blogging community who worship the ground Bernard and Peter (and whatever the
rest of them are called) make beats on. And it’s all down to my story-telling
brain, which has inextricably linked the anger, embarrassment and shame I felt
that evening in 1988 to New Order’s Technique. Neural pathways have been
created which mean that whenever I hear New Order on the radio, or see another
post pop up about them on one of my favourite blogs, I’m taken back to that
night and all those unpleasant feelings.
Since I was born I started to decay
Now nothing ever, ever goes my way
Dr. Faith would no doubt tell me that this can be fixed.
That if I started listening to more New Order, thereby allowing my brain to
create new neural pathways which could over-ride the old ones, that would
eventually lead to positive associations and responses, and my opinion of the
band might change. It is possible to re-wire your brain in this way… after all,
as I mentioned earlier, I used to hate The Smiths, and then in my 20s, various
things happened which allowed me to hear them in a new light. If I put enough
energy and effort into it then, perhaps I could make myself like New Order.
Are there any bands you hate because your brain has linked their music to painful memories?
