’Tis the season to be single and a chunk of my job as a nightlife journalist includes writing about ways singles can meet and pick up at the bars. This is very funny to anyone who knows me, for reasons I will leave unsaid.
But, with all of my singles writings lately, a lot of my friends have been asking me to hook them up with musician friends, and while they say they’re cool with it, I feel the need to warn them about a few things. So, this singles article is dedicated to them.
It took dating a lot of musicians to learn these lessons, and also watching a lot of my musician friends date women who just couldn’t handle it in the end. But, whether you’re into dating accountants or guitarists, it’s the same shit. If you share each other’s passions, you learn to bend. And if you’re both not willing to bend to help each other fulfil those passions, you should probably go move to the suburbs and find someone whose trauma in life is when the cable signal cuts out or they run out of MGD in the fridge.
So ladies, (and the same applies to gentlemen), if you want to date a musician who is not a douche bag, here are some things to keep in mind. I’ve narrowed the rules down to sets of three – three being the magic number in life, but also three being the reality of how many will be in your couple: you, him, and the music. If that threesome doesn’t turn you on, consider it your first red flag.
3 things you have to be willing to sacrifice while dating a (full-time) musician:
- He’s going to back out of a lot of special occasions.
Your best friend’s cousin’s birthday dinner is next weekend and he said he’d be there. Suddenly, he’s asked to fill in on a couple of paying shows out of town. He’s going to ditch you and you can’t get mad. Why? Because if he threw away paying gigs for special occasions, he’d have no paying gigs. For real. Think of it as if he runs his own business. Thanksgiving? He’ll probably be gone. Long weekends at the cottage with the family? You can DEFINITELY kiss those goodbye, and all other summer weekends while we’re at it. That’s festival season. You’ll probably wind up getting an email on your birthday and kissing your friends’ cheeks on New Year’s Eve, but thems the breaks, kids. Suck it up. If he cancelled shows for every friend’s wedding, birthday or dinner party, he’d be really broke and then you’d still be complaining. - He’s out all night.
Quite often, he’s going to be out really late at the bars, usually drinking, and usually with a ton of people you don’t know and/or women you don’t know. If this makes you uncomfortable, you might as well tuck away those rock star’s wifey dreams right now. - He’s gone for weeks or months at a time.
The more successful he gets, the longer he’ll be gone. Really think about this one and if you are okay supporting your partner’s success vs. your loneliness. In my observational experience, this is usually the one that becomes the deal-breaker in the end.
3 things you’ll get used to while dating a musician:
- Doing your own thing. Imagine! Your own life, where you’re not attached at the hip to someone and relying on their every movement to predict your own! You can have hobbies! And read books! And hang out with friends alone!
- Savouring short snippets of time: Why does there have to be a formula for what constitutes alone time or time well spent together? Some of my most precious moments in relationships have been in pyjamas at the end of long nights, or being woken up at 3 a.m. and talking in the dark, or Sunday morning walks alone.
- Explaining to people that you do actually have a boyfriend who exists: Most of your friends will make cracks about your phantom boyfriend but don’t let it bother you. Would you rather be one of those disgusting couples that loses all sense of identity and grosses everyone out with public displays of affection, or worse, obsessive-compulsive uses of pet names like “baby.” Ugh.
3 signs your musician boyfriend is NOT a loser!
- He still wakes up early to work. Just because he doesn’t technically have a job, it doesn’t mean he can sleep in with you and laze around the house in pyjamas with you on weekends. If he’s a full-time musician actually making a living, he’s probably insanely busy and meticulous about his schedule.
- There are times he’ll choose you over a show. This doesn’t actually contradict what I wrote above because that’s the sign of any good relationship. Balance, balance, balance. I like to think of it as picking your battles. When you absolutely need them, you ask them to be there, and if they can, they will. But if you’re pulling that card for your cousin’s best friend’s birthday dinner, you’re going to lose that card pretty fast.
- He introduces you as his girlfriend and other common courtesies. Any guy who plays the “but baby, it’s the business” game is a loser. Guys who think being a musician gives them the right to be a dick…. are just dicks! Plain and simple. I’ve learned this the hard way and dated some douche bags who have said things like “If I introduce you as my girlfriend, it will ruin the sexual tension between my manager and I, and that will ruin my career.” Yep, true story. Also, guys who claim to have to pretend to be single to keep their female fans are also douche bags. They’re generally the same musicians who like to plaster their faces on anything and everything, calling themselves rock star geniuses, but there’s not much music behind that inflated sense of self.
If none of the above things happen and he doesn’t have a day job, you’re actually in more trouble than you thought.
3 reasons your musician boyfriend doesn’t have a day job but doesn’t play much music either:
- He’s a trust fund baby: There are lots of silver-spoon fed, swaddled, singer-songwriter trust fund babies floating around the stages in this city. (Mostly the open stages, might I add.) They’re generally very deep individuals with lots of inner turmoil, crazy expensive gear, and very good looking guitars. And, they probably get a daily feel-good e-mail from their mom telling them how much of a genius they are, and how it’s but a matter of time before some record exec falls out of a rainbow-coloured cloud, lands on their doorstep with a large cheque and a contract full of creative license, and takes them on the road to make a million dollars. Oh yeah, and they probably play one show a month, if that.
- More likely, he’s just a loser: Sorry to break it to you but if he spends most of his days lying around on a couch in front of his Playstation and can’t support himself as a musician, and still doesn’t feel the need to get some sort of job, he’d probably be doing the same thing if he were aspiring to be a painter, a chef, a police officer, an accountant or a professional ass-wiper. Seriously. It’s a problem with his work ethic, nothing else. Loser!
- He could also be a drug dealer: Last year I met a guy at The Gladstone who I thought was cute and charming – until he told me was a full-time musician supporting his young son, but didn’t play in any bands. He also carried a very large backpack with him everywhere he went, which included washrooms with strangers, and strange dark corners with very sketchy looking individuals who had come to meet him. Hmmm….
To end on a kind note, he could also be totally legit. Maybe he’s insanely rich from ghostwriting a hit song for Michael Buble or Britney or something, but is so humble he just can’t bring himself to tell you. Ya, that’s it…..



