Reasons Why it is Probably Best to Date a Musician
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, Sep-17-2014 at 12:02pm (7496 Views)
It is sometimes a mystery to me that anyone can get along with anyone else, considering how hard we all are to understand individually. Dating is a total mystery. Dating a non-musician is an exercise in delaying the first disappointment when she suddenly realizes the truth: you are not a normal good guy who eats and works and sleeps and takes long walks and has an interesting hobby but no other real passion in life than her.
If you date a musician you will not have that awkward moment when you first show her where you live. It can be hard to explain to a non-musician why you have nine mandolins, three banjos, four guitars, a penny whistle, and two ukuleles. All of them in the living room. I can’t imagine how that looks to someone not properly expecting it. Worse than having nine cats I am sure.
If you date a musician you will not have to explain that you are listening to music. It’s not just in the background, no you can’t do the dishes right now. Musicians listen to music differently, we really do. We listen like one might listen to a book on tape or a world series baseball game on the radio.
If you date a musician you don’t have to justify your practice time and explain that no you don’t need away time, you need practice time. I think it natural that someone who wants to be with you is jealous of the time you spend behind the mandolin. It’s that much harder if the someone doesn’t have her own instrument to spend time behind or at least to understand being passionate about.
If you date a musician you won’t have to explain the one side of the phone conversations she hears that sound so goofy – “its two - five – one – one minor” or, worse yet “behind the bush in the garden – haste to the wedding – you married my daughter but you didn’t – squirrel heads in gravy – yea, in that order”.
If you date a musician, another case or two showing up in the living room now and then is no big deal. Seriously. I am not saying you can go crazy, but another musician is likely to understand your priorities and not remind you that you can’t play two mandolins at the same time.
A non-musician will have trouble understanding why you take so long in a music store, but can get through an antique store in minutes.
If you date a musician, your taste in chairs is not a whole discussion. No arms. I don’t want recliners, I don’t want overstuffed chairs to sink into, just give me six or seven Windsor chairs of various ages and colors.
If you date a musician you don’t get a weird look when you announce your decision to drive 15 hours to a hill top in West Virginia to live in a tent for a week.
If you date a musician then your date won't think it odd that you have a collection of friends with whom you have met often for perhaps years, but don’t necessarily know what they do for a living, or whether they have children. I have friends, real friends, with whom I have rarely had an extended conversation about anything that wasn’t music. We don’t talk a lot at jam sessions. But we have played music together for coming on three decades.
If you date a musician you don’t have to worry that she feels abandoned at parties when you sit in the corner with the jammers. I go to parties to play music – not to eat, drink, talk, flirt, or show off my new blazer.
If you date a musician you don’t have to hide your distress over a small cut to a finger on your left hand, OMG, OMG. This better heal up by tomorrow, I am playing the square dance and the fiddler can’t make it so I am the strong melody lead.
At the end of the day, its probably best if she is a banjo player. Anyone that can take playing the banjo seriously has got the right combination of sublime and ridiculous, serious and silly, reverence and sarcasm, darkness and light. Likely a good catch.