Use our code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/SNAKE10
Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

I love it when zach and madeline speaks in taylor swift lyrics, it's like speaking in tongues for swifties

Taylor "I have normal fights with my boyfriend that paralyze me" Swift

I seriously can't comprehend how they survived the making of Midnights...Like they stayed TOGETHER after QUESTION??!!! That's demented behaviour

Even the song 'Lover' ,which is meant to be so romantic, the whole chorus is just her asking him over and over not to leave her. That whole album is anxious attachment.

When I first heard Hoax I thought it was written from the prospective of somebody in a toxic relationship and then I watched the long pond studio session where she said something like “this is what true love means for me, being sad together “ or something like that and I was like girl…💀💀

Lover makes Taylor and Joe’s anxious-avoidant dynamic even more apparent

the way you talked about the "you have beaten my heart" line from hoax is literally YLM's "I'm getting tired even for a phoenix, rising from the ashes... you might just have dealt the final blow"

Gotye said it so well: "you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness/like resignation to the end, always the end" and I think that sums up so much of what Taylor was expressing during a lot of this time period

We have to do this again but with Renegade: "If I would've known how many pieces you had crumbled into. I might have let them lay". She released this and I CAN'T believe I didn't clock the Joe of it all.

Taylor and Joe were the CLASSIC pursuer and distancer dynamic; he would stew silently, she would crack more and reach out for comfort more, and that just pushed him into his sullen silence more....I've lived that dynamic, it really is quite difficult. I think people stay because there's these little glimmers that YOU are the only one who can finally break the distancer out of their shell.

I don't think there ever even was a "honeymoon period".
"Cried like a baby coming home from the bar" "I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you". "I snuck through the garden gate every night that summer just to seal my fate". "I love you ain't that the worst thing you ever heard"
Cruel Summer is an entire song telling us that she doesn't like secrecy and hiding and he views her love as a burden. Literally insane

I think a lot of people are missing the bigger picture.

Before Joe, Taylor had never been in a relationship that lasted more than 10 months. Joe was her first long-term, stable relationship — the first time she truly chose real love over intensity or drama.

But I believe their bond was rooted in trauma. At the time they got together, Taylor was being dragged publicly, unsure of her future, and terrified she’d lost everything. In the midst of that chaos, she gravitated toward someone who felt safe, a quiet, good-hearted guy she’d once had a fling with. Choosing Joe was her way of choosing something different, something mature, grounded, and healing. In doing so, though, she began suppressing core parts of herself.

Taylor is a kind person, but she’s also a global superstar. She thrives on ambition, attention, and being number one, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But in trying to live a quiet, normal life with Joe, she denied those parts of herself for years.

The cracks began to show with Lover, an album that both romanticised domestic bliss and hinted at doubts beneath the surface. Songs like Death by a Thousand Cuts reflect the mental rehearsals of a breakup that hadn’t happened yet. She didn’t have a concrete reason to leave — Joe was kind, loyal, and there for her — but something inside her felt the disconnect. In interviews, she even referenced the movie that inspired the song, a breakup that wasn’t cruel or dramatic, just two people realising they’d grown apart.

I think Joe was emotionally ready to let go when the time came, and that made Taylor feel even more anxious and unsure. Maybe she stayed longer out of fear, especially during the pandemic. Their relationship also aligned with a new narrative for her: even if the industry turned on her, she still had real love.

Then came Folklore. In isolation, she embraced the beauty of that quieter life. But at the same time, she feared being stuck in it forever. Joe didn’t crave the spotlight, didn’t care for fame or power, and a part of her resented that because she still did. She wanted more. She wanted back.

As her ambition reignited, she became obsessed with reclaiming her place at the top. Joe, meanwhile, was off doing acting projects, and that triggered her insecurity. She wondered if he had been unfaithful, even if there was no proof. Hoax captures that fear perfectly.

Enter Matty. The complete opposite of Joe. Famous. Reckless. Brash. A mirror to the side of herself she’d buried. He represented chaos, but also freedom. A return to a version of herself she wasn’t sure she could fully let go of.

In the end, I don’t think she wanted to hurt anyone. But she had outgrown the relationship. She stayed as long as she could, trying to be good, trying to settle, but she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know what she wanted, and it tore her up for a long time.

Sometimes still waters don't run deep. Sometimes there's actually no well. But for someone with a deep, rich inner life, it's incomprehensible that someone else could be that empty, and so you stay and you stay, sure if you could finally drill the safe, there would be riches inside. Leaving becomes not just the trauma of losing that person, that relationship, but also accepting that there really are people devoid of a rich inner life, and that you wasted all those years playing the fool who couldn't comprehend that. Not that I have any experience with this .... but just let me say, So Long London hits so close to home for me.

When you said she’s obsessed with burning it down and starting over I immediately thought of “Sacred new beginnings that became my religion” and also “I died on the alter waitin for the proof, you sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days”…sacrificed to the false god

I don’t believe in “right person wrong time”, because that is essentially just… wrong person. Going into alternate realities to see a version where things work out is really just an exercise in science fiction because those are entirely different people with different lives.

The "you have beaten my heart" always gets me, dude. She sounds like she's crying or on the verge of tears. It's sooo sad.

I also would like to add, I was with a Joe for 11 years. And the thing with their types is it's never "bad enough" to leave. I watched friends go through way worse toxicity in their relationships and I always said "wow I don't have that" but I was miserable. I made him my temple my mural my sky, and I fought to be footnotes in the story of his life (and I failed). I also believe had the pandemic not happened, I would have ended things sooner. I 1000% where her head was at and how she could have fallen for Ratty Healy so hard

The pic of Joe and Taylor at the 2020 Golden Globes in the thumbnail is poetic. When I saw them comfortably sitting directly next to each other that whole night, I remember feeling so proud of them for protecting and nurturing their relationship to the point where it could withstand public pressure and media scrutiny. I genuinely believed that they would be endgame.

Unpopular opinion... Taylor got away with her poems for so long because the Turkey doesn't listen to The Taylor Swift. She gave so many signs....