{taylor swift and me}

since 2007, i have had a long and arduous relationship with taylor swift. i'm pretty sure that was the fall i first saw her video for teardrops on my guitar, where she is pictured in bed in a flowing green grad dress, cuddling with her guitar and, you know, crying on it. crying glitter.

i was in the living room of my new apartment, eating oatmeal with peanut butter and cereal mixed into it, when ctv previewed the song and its new music video. i'd never seen taylor before, and didn't know then that i'd ever see her again, let alone that she'd become part of my life in such a ridiculous way.

at once i didn't like her. she was awkward looking, and she laughed in this way that i didn't like--with her hand curled in front of her mouth and her eyes all squinched up and her teeth splaying out--and the song, lyrically and musically, was cheesy and also the part about her laying in bed cuddling with her guitar and crying on it. i judged her. i judged her so hard.

taylor swift. whatever. i was over her before she began.

anyway, it started that spring at a grad supper. a friend was introducing me to his family, and when his dad shook my hand he said, "well! you were right: she does look just exactly like taylor swift!"

because i didn't know this man, and because i didn't know how to react to this offence, i looked sideways at my friend and gave a bewildered laugh, which prompted a guffaw from the father, and further commentary: "you laugh just like her too!"

i know, i know. there are worse people to be compared to. bill cosby, for instance. i knew it was meant as a compliment and that i should've reacted with a blush and a shy smile but, first of all, i knew i didn't look like taylor swift. i had the same hair as her--long, blond, and very curly--and now i realized that i also shared the same awkward mannerisms: the splaying teeth, the squinchy eyes, the i-know-i'm-very-tall-for-a-girl posture. i realized that the dislike for her music video had been similar to the feeling i have when someone posts a picture of me on facebook mid-laugh, when my mouth is open and you can see my tonsils. {i know, i need to get over it. i just have a really strange laughing face.} second of all: i'm kind of snotty about music and i just straight up didn't like hers. on the other hand, if people said i looked like aaron weiss, i'd be all over that, minus the beard. he dances like an angel.

and so it began. taylor swift was famous overnight and everywhere i went, people commented on the likeness. strangers stopped me at the mall to comment on it; i heard teen girls whispering off to my left in the grocery store about whether or not they should ask for my autograph {until i took my sunglasses off}, i heard the reference no less than twice a day. my dad called me one day to tell me that he thought he'd seen me on tv yesterday! {but then it wasn't you!} {it's okay, dad. i can understand why you thought it was me on the stage at the country music awards.}

it took a couple years, but finally i realized that taylor swift wasn't going anywhere and that i should probably just embrace the whole thing. i mean, i didn't start listening to her music or anything {except that one song she did with the civil wars}, but i stopped being bitter about it and started finding it quite funny, especially when the strangers who stopped me on the street were 60 year-old men telling me i looked like the girl from the romeo and juliet song.

as kind of a "truce", i dressed up as her for halloween.

and then i got sick and my hair straightened itself pretty much overnight and all the comments stopped. i no longer "looked" like taylor swift, and finally i was proved right: it was always only the hair.

so i went back to being myself and walking through the mall undetected by squealing 13 year-olds and elderly country fans.

anyway. the point isn't all that; that's just backstory. the point is that i got my hair cut on friday and when the hairdresser was done with me, she spun my chair around and studied my face.

"wow. you look like taylor swift," she said.

i hit google as soon as i got home to find out what she meant.

this is what she meant:

why did no one tell me that taylor got BANGS?