YOU!
Yes, you were chosen out of a crowd of DMs.
You were the coolest girl in the city they were touring that week. You’re not what you might think is disposable, as a matter of fact, you’re special. They really “dug your vibe” and the fact you didn’t care that they texted you at 12 am on a Tuesday. To which you responded, “oh just out with friends.” You want to give the impression you live a fun life too, trying to match the fact they just came back from an exotic location like Tulum or Berlin. In reality, you’re at home, in bed, eating ice cream, and crying to the most recent episode of This is Us. So when they ask if you want to hang out, you sit and ponder… “Do I really want to get up, shave my legs, and throw some makeup on..?”
Hell yeah!
So you go for it because this is the moment in time you get to brag to your friends about it. A quick flash of the future passes before your eyes…free merchandise, unreleased songs, and yes, artist passes. Months go by and there’s a song release, you think it’s about your “deep connection”. It’s not. It’s about them trying to figure out your location and how long it would take for you to uber to them. Whether it’s Palm Springs, San Francisco, Las Vegas, or the West Side of Los Angeles, they have you in the palm of their hand otherwise known as a 20 minute Uber. And thinking back to the thrill of the late-night uber just for some DJ who was wholly unreliable outside of the bedroom…
It’s not as rewarding as one might think.
Now let’s talk about the time they’re not in town. Yes, they saw the boomerang you posted just in the hopes of a response from them. Yes, to kill the loneliness you hit up the guy who you went to high school with. Yes, you keep going out, and yes you keep drinking till the sun is up. You have to maintain the aura that you live a fun, single life with or without them. Which entails texting them and losing service while going through Laurel Canyon, stumbling out of Frolic Room, catching an uber pool off Sunset, oh and drunk texting. A lot of drunk texting.
But you love their music, so you try to separate them from the sound, but after a while, it becomes a challenge to differentiate the guy who never texts you back with their perfect production and impeccable lyrics. So instead you develop a love for whiskey which you would think helps numb the uncertainty if you’re actually the one… it doesn’t. Instead of overthinking what he’s doing, you hook up with the guy you met at the bar last night.
Now, it takes a certain type of girl. You need time to waste, patience, objectively good looks, and no shame in telling them how cool and great they are when they’re not on tour. You still need a little hint of pride, because god forbid you’re at the same festival they’re playing. You don’t want to ask them what time their set is over because there are so many other sets you could be attending. As aloof as you try to be, you always ask “how does one maintain the cool-girl persona who expects nothing but at the same time expects to be the one they text when they land.” So without even knowing it, you’re trapped.
They want a picture of your feet? Sure. They want to see your new haircut? Well of course. Oh, you got new lingerie? Let me see. It’s all good and fun until your benders get longer and your expectations get higher. They pretend to be invested in your daily life but always leave you wondering how many other girls’ family life and jobs are they memorizing. All this skepticism and anxiety just in the hopes your night ends up with you in their bed.
And now that we have an understanding of what dating a DJ is like, it actually ends up being a lot of fun. We are biologically programmed as females to think forward; to think of our future, but let’s be real. The described fate reads, “I just played a sub-par set at the Do Lab”, it does not read “let’s shop for patio furniture and cold brew our own coffee every morning”. On our end, the end of the girl who dates the sub-par Do Lab set, it reads a temporary drinking problem and bad hangovers. In real life, he wasn’t even that cool. He’s a bad habit. A habit of romanticizing what could be or what could’ve been that will lead you down a dark tunnel, the light at the end being low-self esteem and a therapy bill.
As many fun times as there were spent talking about music in the late 2000s, there were that many venues. There were that many other girls who were there to make them feel less alone in the face of constant traveling and empty hotel rooms. So you tried to stand out by saying how much you love french house music, but in reality, you were just another pretty face with good music taste. And that can only ever go so far. You realized there will always be another cute girl who loves good music and is just as good at filling an empty bed space. Because let’s face it, you, yes you, were as replaceable as any other guest on the list.