Casual by Chappell Roan helped me leave lasting relationships | Chappell Roan

‘Sadie,” I said, “I call our daughter Sadie. Or I like Leo for a guy. ” I’ve been on the phone for two and a half hours, talking about our imaginary children to a man who flatly said he doesn’t want a relationship. At the same time, he said things like: “I told my mother about you. He wants to meet you.” When he says that, I can not dream – in the words of a certain song – about us in one year: maybe we will have a house, and he will show me to his friends at the hole?

That’s a fantasy Chappell Roan he thinks in his 2022 song Casual. My vision looks a little different: instead of the hole there is a house (where the familiar sound of his key in the door still haunts me), and his friends say things like: “I’ve never seen him act like this with anyone else.” But the interesting thing is that, in this fantasy, we have made a promise to each other. The first time I heard Casual, I was in a committed relationship. I listened to it many times, singing out loud in the room I shared with my boyfriend “Get under the couch, and you’re eating me”. (Roan was nervous about that line — “it’s stupid,” he said — but the fans loved it.) I also liked the song’s sentiment of unrequited desire, but I didn’t agree with it. Not now.

After two years, single again and back on the programs, looking for connection in the hellscape of dating dating, I continued to find myself in confusingly ambiguous relationships. I used to hang out with people who did things that showed commitment: they would give me a toothbrush, which I would leave at home, and I would keep my clothes in their drawers. We used to hang out as a family – visiting gardens on lazy Saturday mornings and giving each other our favorite books to read. They can tell how I can live with their sister.

It was the fantasy that made it so addictive – imagining what could have been instead of what actually was. For many months, I rode a dopamine rollercoaster that always went up when the speculations were increasing, but then fell quickly when the reality hit – when they take three weeks to respond, accidentally send me genitals made for someone or post a picture to their Instagram with their hand around another girl.

I don’t think their vagueness was intentional or malicious: we all just wanted to connect, and it was easy for me to get carried away with the idea that this could be The One. But now, in my mid-30s, the fear of wasting my time on someone who won’t do anything started to rise with each birthday. I had found myself in another unknown love, and this journey was long. “Do you really want to wake up in two years and find that you’re still far from someone who doesn’t want to do it?” my sister asked.

I didn’t think I did, but I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was okay with that. I found chemistry and connection, and isn’t that what we’re all looking for? Why did I have to sacrifice myself to be safe and secure?

That night, on my way home, Casual started playing in my ears. I heard the song like the first time. As Roan sang: “I hate that I let this go on for so long, now I hate myself.” Hating that I let this drag on for a long time, you can go to hell”, I felt anger, shame, abandonment – and I realized that I had buried the same feelings in me. I realized that, by falling in love with someone’s potential, I forgot to pay attention to the reality of who they were. I answered them with their hands and ignored their words. Somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing what I wanted.

The next day, I asked the most recent question about my “conditions”: could this be something else? That relationship ended because of that conversation, and I haven’t been in it since. Now, when I’m in a relationship with someone and say “We’re not together”, I listen to them – instead of dwelling on the bright future that involves Sadie, Leo and the house in the world.