When you go into a store, whether it is a grocery store, a clothing store, or even just a convenience store there will be a playlist on loop that is only about 2-3 hours long that drives all of it’s employees crazy. As expected the majority of those songs is about love and even sex. I work at a CVS in the pharmacy and I know every song on that playlist. I think there are only two songs that don’t have sex or romance in it.

I’m aromantic. I’m not gonna generalize aromantic people, there is a spectrum and it can be a bit complicated, but for me I have never felt the emotion that is romantic attraction. Because of that I can see things a bit differently then others and because of that I can see just how wild that emotion is.

Here’s an example, my best friend got married back in 2021. Great, love them both, cried during the wedding, I was her only bride’s man, genuinely happy for her. I feel like I always need to specify that I don’t hate romantic attraction every time I tell a story. I asked her about something because of an unrelated story, what would happen if he cheated on her. Her response was that she would burn the house down as well as the house of the girl he was cheating with. I then asked her what she would do if she didn’t know she was his second woman. Her response was still “I don’t care, her house is going down.”

I feel like now is a good time to slip in that I’m asexual. I know I am hiding behind a username, but I still don’t wanna give too much info about that because asexuality can be complicated too and can also be super private. Let’s say that I do not understand the appeal of sex. The correlation between sexual and romantic attraction honestly confuses me still so take with a slight grain of salt.

My understanding is that cheating, traditionally, means that someone in a romantic relationship sleeps with someone else outside of that relationship without the other’s consent. If this were to happen my best friend would be commit arson twice. Because she loves him she would destroy everything including her life. I asked other people about that and they agreed with what she had to say. Even writing this with the small chance of someone reading this I have no idea whether my own thoughts make sense or not or if it would resonate.

I hate when people compare their relationships with Romeo and Juliet. You see it in sitcoms all the time typically by the main character followed by the usual B plot character saying “you know how that play ends, right?” B plot character is right. Romeo and Juliet is a love story that was written by William Shakespeare, but it was plagiarized, not really any copyright laws written yet. Saving you the history lesson that no one cares about, the original story’s moral was to listen to your parents and the people around you. Maybe you shouldn’t commit suicide over a lover you met a few days ago out of passion. Yet there are so many movie adaptations of the story that completely neglects the source material that had a very good moral. Everyone’s got a white knuckle rage song that puts them in a bad mood in a second. Mine is Love Story by Taylor Swift, which is just an unsatisfying song with an incomplete story that is super boring and I know every word of because my sister played it a million times on the piano when we were younger.

My other white knuckle rage song is You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift. Same idea as the last, know every word, sister played it all the time. You can not convince me otherwise that song is about entitlement. Taylor’s view point is that she likes a guy that likes her back platonically. He has a girlfriend as well. This girlfriend expresses emotions that she’s upset because of something that he said. He could have said something offensive under the guise of humor, literally nothing wrong with her having emotions and expressing them. By listing the differences that Taylor’s character has with her love rival it shows the guy that she’s into has a preference for a girl who puts effort into the way she looks and extracurricular activities. Despite that Taylor’s character still repeats throughout the song that he belongs with her. I do not understand on what basis.

Another song that plays at my store actually makes me sick to my stomach and it is one of the most sexual songs I know that I know the name of. That song is Shape of You by Ed Sheeran. I don’t even need to dissect that. That is a very sexual song in a place where people bring their kids. It makes you realize that the toy aisle is right next to the… toy aisle. The one where they sell condoms, lube, performance pills that don’t actually work, literal sex toys, feminine hygiene products that makes gynecologists roll their eyes, and…. maxi pads and tampons. Literally don’t know why they are in that isle, but I probably should bring that up with a manager and rearrange the isles so that kids don’t go running around in it and point at the bottle that says Horny Goat Weed.

There are many things we can point at to counterargue with the Karens terrified of the “gay agenda” because they didn’t like Blue’s Clues having a Pride episode with the most wholesome Pride parade ever. One of them is the music on the radio. This isn’t a new thing that they decided to fight “the gay agenda” it was there forever even when I was a kid living in the 2000s. I’ve listened to it. I know it and I know that my generation isn’t the first. I’d say as someone who is neither, the “hetero agenda” is significantly louder and significantly more sexual.

To generalize, I think I can describe romantic attraction easily. To prove it I wrote a story on a dare. It was around the same size of the 6th Harry Potter book and it was the biggest dumb thing I’ve ever done for a funny story that I can tell at a party. She also peer pressured me to post it. Way too many people read that cover to cover. What an easy genre to write and something I think about often. Mostly because I realize I probably would have finished my psych major in college if I wasn’t writing that, but hey over 700 people read all the way through so I guess I wasted their time too.

I know writing an obnoxiously long story because I lost a bet is a bit different from writing music, but here are some ideas for some songs that aren’t about love that I would love to hear. These are topics a lot of people can relate to.

Fear of giving up stability to chase a dream

Fear of not being accepted by peers

Sword fighting

Learning to spot red flags in people

Finding out about your friend’s depression

The importance of taking time to step back and get out of tunnel vision that can be destructive

The need to impress people

Dragons

Forgetting to eat and self care

Realizing you haven’t looked at the sky and touched grass in a minute

Literally anything besides romance because to me, it feels like creativity is dead.