Swift Relationships

If you have found yourself scrolling through the meme boards lately, as I have, you've probably noticed the high comment traffic concerning Taylor Swift and her love drama.  The online community has been surprisingly harsh in their judgement toward her apparent string of boyfriends and breakup songs. Though I'm not one to get involved with celebrity gossip, Taylor's situation struck a chord with me, and I had to speak up.

We've all been there, haven't we?  A late-teens/early-twenties romantic feeling the loss of a broken relationship, and we all deal with the seemingly endless loneliness in different ways: we cry, we finish that tub of ice cream, we break things, we go for a long run, we listen to rock music, or we express our emotions in a creative way.  Taylor Swift is not the first person to do this.  We all remember Corey Flood from "Say Anything" and the 60+ songs she wrote about her ex-boyfriend. Sixty songs.  And we loved her for it.  

She was dealing with the loss of her virginity, a love she thought would last, and all the hormones of an 80's high-schooler.  Big stuff.  But it was this melodic catharsis that allowed her to eventually stand up to the infamous Joe. Having the courage to stare our pain in the face and deal with it in a productive way is an ability that we all strive for and something that makes us better, more emotionally mature adults.

There have been countless girls sitting in their bedrooms strumming out tear-filled ballads over their latest crush.  Relationships are hard, and when faced with the inevitable realization that we have failed at them once again, we find creative ways to deal with the trauma.  Taylor Swift is simply unlucky enough to be in the public spotlight during this time in her life.  She's just another one of those girls in their bedrooms, except her tear-filled ballads make the Top 40 on the pop charts and are broadcast worldwide.

Being famous doesn't make her any less human and imperfect.  Rather, the spotlight brings down the overwhelming and often immobilizing ridicule of the entire world on her everyday mistakes, as if celebrity should have been the magic key to unlocking seamless life choices.  The search for love is messy and full of holes, even more so when fame is involved, but the longer it takes the more we know we've learned about ourselves by the end.

So at the risk of offending the entire internet community, I would like to give Taylor credit for refusing to settle for just any Hollywood romance and for putting her relationship experiences in the public eye for others to learn from. Hopefully she's learned from them too.  I think in general we could stand to cut these celebrity girls a little slack and wade through our jealousy over their fame and fortune to the realization that stardom often contorts interpersonal relationships and hinders personal development.  If we look closely, we'll find that they share similar hopes for the future and need just as much help as we do to get there.