"You looked happy, and that's great. I just miss you, that's all."

These are two lines from Robyn's Be Mine! (everyone who doesn't have it should go and listen to it so they know what I'm talking about. Or email me or something, I can totally hook you up. Or rather, I can totally redirect you somewhere legal and above-board) that, as I might have mentioned before, almost never fail to make little girly tears prickle at the corner of my eyes. I realise after intensive experimentation that these semi-tears don't restrict themselves to appropriate times, like my bedroom or in the corner of the library. No, they threaten to burst forth in public: the bus, the train, my friend Dangerfield's (and no, that's not really his name) place when I made him listen to it.

It was actually Dangerfield who asked me why those two lines made me so sad, as opposed to I Will Always Love You or the death of a puppy or something. My first answer was along the lines of "Well...you know...because, she's like totally sad and that makes me, like, totally sad," or something similarly eloquent.

This was declared to be lame. So then I said that maybe it was because she realised that something she had so desperately wanted was never going to happen, which is sad enough in itself, but to resign herself to such a fate, to be so matter-of-fact about it all, while all the while her bottom lip is trembling and she struggles to keep the floodgates together...now that is tragic.
Dangerfield, having gone to the Sapnish Inquisition School of Curiosity, asked me if this song actually made me think of anyone. I said yes, it made me think of Rob. This satisfied Dangerfield somewhat, but he had another question; it wasn't as if I'd never had Rob, was it? After all, this song is about never having someone to begin with, not having them and then losing them (at least geographically). Surely some other song would make me cry more than this one, at least while thinking about him?

I had to admit it, Dangerfield had a good point.

After much thought, I can remember one night in particular when Rob was here. That morning, we'd gone off to meet my grandmother so that he could interview her for an assignment. This was followed by dinner, then by a movie I fell asleep in, and then by an interminably long bus ride back to Rob's place, as services to my place had stopped. By this stage of the night I was cranky and irritable (hard to believe, I know) and just wanted to sleep in my own bed. Rob asked me a question, I forget what now, and I also forget what my response to him was, apart from it being more than a little snappy.

Rob turned to look at me with those amazing big brown eyes of his. They were watering slightly (in hindsight, I think that was more to do with his dodgy contacts than any sort of emotion, but the effect was the same) when he said "I just want to spend time with you" in exactly that tone of voice. A little wounded, but so matter-of-fact. And, for a brief moment, I remember all of that crankiness disappeared and all I wanted to do was hug him and tell him that I was sorry and that I wouldn't ever get cranky with him again if it meant that he would have to give me that look again and talk to me in that way and oh my god I am SUCH A JERK...but we were on a bus, so I didn't. Even though I should have. Sometimes the experience of being the idiot who causes someone pain is almost as bad as being the one it happens to. Well, if you're me and you like to ruminate on such things.

Perhaps I'll tell Dangerfield this story when I see him next. See if that satisfies him. Except then he'll probably ask why my brain works in such a stupid way, choosing to file things under "Bittersweet Emotional Experiences" rather than, I don't know, "Colour" or something. And then I'll hit him with a book about behavioural neuroscience.