Taylor Swift’s Boyfriend Responds to “I Knew You Were Trouble”

I knew it was a possibility that Taylor Swift was a little bit wild before I met her.

She’d become reputable for writing a song about everyone she broke up with, and the narrative of each was very obviously skewed to her point of view. She was like that person some of us have dated who does whatever he or she can in the aftermath of the relationship to disparage your public image. The glaring difference that separates Taylor from these people, however, is that instead of posting something bitchy and passive-aggressive on Facebook that a few people will see, she can write a song that billions of people will hear, hundreds of times each, whether they want to or not.

Because of this breakup habit of hers, I decided I’d better consult my friends before dating her.

The females: “This is a horrible idea. And we’re not saying that because we’re jealous.”

The males: “She seems like a little much, but has that ever stopped you before?”

It hasn’t. And it didn’t this time.

Why? Because Taylor Swift is:

• Astronomically famous.
• Unfathomably wealthy.
• Pretty.

I’d probably go out with a girl who was any one of these things. I’m not proud of it, but whatever.

Three days after we broke up, she came out with a song called “I Knew You Were Trouble.”

Told from her point of view, it makes me seem like quite an asshole. Which I may be, but not because of anything I ever did to Taylor Swift.

Below, I respond to some of her lyrics, and in effect tell my side of the story.

**

Once upon time, a few mistakes ago / I was in your sights / You got me alone.

One of those mistakes had to be Taylor running into me while we were walking down the street (you might blame her fringe bangs). The resulting crash caused my phone to fly from my hand onto the street, where it was immediately run over.

It takes a special person to think that I would have her “in my sights” so we would collide and I could toss my phone into traffic just so we could talk. I can’t break my phone every time I see some broad I want to meet. Plus it was around lunchtime, so the only thing truly “in my sights” was the street meat I was about to dominate.

“Here, I’ll give you my number,” she said. “You can text me when you want to meet up and shop for a new phone.”

“…But I don’t have a cell phone anymore. It was just destroyed. Right in front of you. I cannot text you.”

I also think it’s fair to contest her implication that I was the one who got her alone. When we began discussing phone replacement, her bodyguard nearly tackled me. She was the one who said, “Stew, he’s OK. Leave us alone.” Then we talked. And set up a cell phone shopping trip that turned into something more.

**

You found me.

On our second date we played hide-and-seek in one of her apartments. I did find her, and quickly, because noises like “tee-hee-hee” usually don’t come from kitchen cupboards.

**

I guess you didn’t care / And I guess I liked that.

It’s not that that I didn’t care about Taylor — I just didn’t care about how we spent our time. So I would often respond to her questions about what we should do by saying, “I don’t care, long as I’m with you,” thinking that whatever she would come up with would be some cool celebrity thing where she would pay for a bunch of stuff.

So that’s how I ended up playing hide-and-seek with another 20-something on a Friday night.

**

And when I fell hard, you took a step back, without me.

We only went out for two weeks, so I’m not sure how hard she could have fallen, if we’re speaking metaphorically. Literally, however, she did fall very hard on the ground once while in my presence.

We were at a party hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow (because crazies stick together), and, out of nowhere, a hammered Taylor screamed “TRUST FALL” and fell backwards like she was taking a charge from an invisible man. Startled, I instinctively stepped backward and watched her hit the ground with a thud. I was even more startled when Kanye West started laughing maniacally and screaming, “THAT WAS PRETTY FUCKING HILARIOUS, BUT GRAPE STOMP LADY HAD THE GREATEST FALL OF ALL TIME. OF. ALL. TIME.” And then he moonwalked out of the room.

**

And he’s long gone when he’s next to me / And I realize the blame is on me.

When Taylor got me a new phone (which she insisted on programming with ring tones of her own songs), she would get upset when we were hanging out and I would pay any attention to my phone, or anything other than me.

“What’re you doing?” she’d say. “It’s like you’re in another world!”

“Checking my email.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know what’s going on at work.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t write songs for overly emotional teenagers. I write things for companies that clients have to approve, and that go through all kinds of legal channels. I was checking to see if I’d messed up anything for our latest presentation. They told me I could leave early to come to the Kids’ Choice Awards with you this week as long as I keep updated.”

“Why?”

“…”

“Why are you staring across the street?”

“Because that middle-aged woman is walking up Broadway without a shirt on.”

“Oh, so you like hers better than mine?!”

“Not sure. Haven’t seen yours yet.”

**

’Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in, so shame on me now / Flew me to places I’d never been / Now I’m lying on the cold hard ground.

I contest to this day that I am not “trouble,” and that if I were, there is no way Taylor would’ve been able to intuit this when I walked into her in the middle of a busy street. I will never understand people trying to make themselves feel better about (alleged) mistakes they’ve made by saying they should have known not to make said mistakes. That should make you feel even worse.

As far as the “flying her to places” thing, I think she’s using some creative license. Probably the only place I’ve been that she hasn’t is my area of rural Pennsylvania, and we didn’t get far enough into a relationship for me to fly her home to meet the parents. (I’m glad about this. Mom would’ve been nonplussed, Dad would’ve been nice to her, inadvertently charming her with his ability to treat her like “you know, just a regular girl” when in fact my father would not have known she was anything but. I’d have to explain to him multiple times how I ended up traveling to PA on a private jet with a peppy blonde and a huge black dude named Stew.)

**

And I heard you moved on / From the whispers in the street.

Taylor’s version of “whispers in the street” is, I guess, Stew following me around for a few days and happening to see me out for drinks and stories about Taylor with my friend Emily. Interestingly, this was during the time Taylor was allegedly wooing some descendant of JFK.

**

A new notch in your belt is all I’ll ever be.

Nobody ever explained to her that you have to have had sex with a person to become a new notch in his belt; that dudes don’t poke a new hole in their belts every time they hold hands with a girl. (Unless it’s a Bible belt.) One night, I tried to go under the shirt and over the bra, and she pulled away, saying, “You’re trouble, aren’t you?”

**

When your saddest fear comes creeping in / That you never loved me or her or anyone or anything…

My saddest fear is not that I never loved Taylor, or the ‘her’ she is speaking of (Adele I think). I’ve loved plenty of women. Too many for a 25 year old, some may say. And to imply I don’t love anything is ridiculous. I love cheese, and I love scotch. So there. The love of those two things is, in fact, partially responsible for our break-up. One night, I was unable to go out with her because I got too drunk and constipated pregaming by myself at home with a bottle of Johnnie Walker and three blocks of Muenster.

She said it was over, and that we were never ever going to get back together.

I’d head that before in a song of hers, and I’d seen it on the Facebook status of the last girl with whom I’d failed at dating.

Like I do anytime I’m going through a break-up, I turned to my Mom for consolation. And got none.

“Did you fall for her because she looks kind of Asian?” She asked via FaceTime while I repeatedly slammed my head off my desk. “I know that is an Achilles’ Heel for you, Scott. And she’s blonde and richer than her version of god she is always rambling about, so I imagine you were thinking you could cheat the cosmic system and cross off the entirety of your Bucket List via one woman, once you took her to a Bright Eyes concert, and somehow managed to convince her to dress up as Agent Dana Scully for Halloween.”

After my experiences with Adele and Kelly Clarkson, I really should have known dating celebrities was trouble, Mom said.

She is almost always right.

**

Originally published at www.flipcollective.com on February 6, 2013.