They say that familiarity breeds contempt. I’m not sure it does, but it certainly takes the varnish of mystery off. Laid bare, people either become endearing or insufferable. Or both.

For those of us who are sensitive, who have a lens that captures truths, the world can be a difficult place to navigate. We know the emperor is wearing no clothing. And yet it’s us who are called weird for saying as much.

And for This, I love Travis. I spent last night with him under the pretense of watching DeGrassi but really it was a chance for us to touch base on all things relevant and The 1975.

Travis knows where most of Tyler’s skeletons are buried and he will dig them up and put them on full display for me.

He also helps me breakdown and process information gathered from other sources that sounds suspect. Like Andrea’s description of a night a couple weeks ago. When Andrea describes the night to me I visualized it and tried not to gag. It involved jamming. I’m allergic to people who bring out their guitars at parties. Nobody likes that guy. So when Andrea claimed it was beautiful and also mentioned who was in attendance, I immediately asked, “Where was Travis?” Because something in me knew he would have hated this moment as much as I did. And I wasn’t even there.

“He was downstairs with Sharif.”

Travis tells me the night’s events as I figured they went down. He’s a mostly reliable narrator.

And all the things that drive us insane about the people we love we can say to each other. It makes life less lonely.

Speaking of which, Travis said something about Matty Healy in a new way. “Can you imagine what it was like to be 17 and see this guy who says it’s ok to like pop music and is on the smaller side?”

I see what Matty meant to him because Matty meant the same thing to me. I was 36 and I’d gone my whole life being bent to the will of other people’s tastes. I’d never been allowed to develop my own. Suddenly I was dating all these guys with opinions on music and I could have easily folded myself into a pretzel for any of them. Most of them said really awful things about The 1975. And that’s how I knew they weren’t for me. Because this was something I wasn’t going to compromise on. This is my band and you either respect that or you disappear. I rebuilt myself around this rod I borrowed for a spine and for that I have zero regrets.