This one was different. This one was the one. As U2 would say, “It was a blind kind of love.” I met M. through my coworker, her twin sister J. Some people might have thought we were doomed from the start. M. had a sad past, I knew this, her ex was an abusive wreck. She was one of those girls, the girl with a heart of gold who always seems to find the biggest jerk to love. I had met her a couple times, and even though I thought she cute, I didn’t think anything else. I’m not the type of guy that girls leave their boyfriends for.

After a while M. broke up with this abusive guy – she said it was the last time – and J. arranged for us to meet at a local bar where their uncle was playing in a band. We met, we talked, we laughed. She’s a pool shark, she loves to bowl and she loved to toss back a few cold ones even more. I knew all about her past, she didn’t need to hide her scars from me, she could let ‘em shine, just be herself. We clicked right away, and her main selling point was that she was a huge Springsteen fan. While I’m happy to say that I didn’t propose marriage right on the spot, that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it. I had made up my mind a long time ago that if I found a girl who was a Springsteen fan, even passively, she’d be the one for me.

Months went by and I felt like we were flying. Christmas, birthdays, St. Patrick’s Day, (my annual party is legendary around these parts) an emergency room visit (a separate, long story). I started to think that this might be the real thing. Around the same time I started cheating on Bruce with Ryan Adams, and much to my surprise, M. loved Ryan too. We were inseparable.

Then something changed. I should’ve seen it, but I didn’t. M. had been sad for so long, she couldn’t trust herself when she started to feel happy. She started pulling away. There were late-night text messages while we were sleeping. I started to get suspicious, she started to sleep alone at her house more, wanted more time apart, wanted to go out by herself. This was the girl who, for six months, had pouted if I didn’t join her and her friends every time they went somewhere. So I knew something was up. I turned to my prophet, my god, Lord Springsteen, for some answers. I put on “Brilliant Disguise.” God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of. I’m not sure if truer words have ever been spoken.

Eventually the axe fell. She told me she was leaving, going back to the other guy, the guy who had hurt her so badly. It seemed I had built her up just enough, carried her on my back to the top of the mountain, and all she wanted was someone to push her back down to the bottom.

To say I was crushed would be an understatement of epic proportions. I tried listening to Bruce, but not even the almighty himself could get me out of my slump. I started drowning my sorrows in Budweiser. I was a real mess. One night I came home and put on this song, it’s an unreleased song by Ryan Adams, our guy – Bruce was mine, but Ryan was ours, so maybe he could help. The first line of the song almost seemed like he wrote it while watching our relationship from afar: It’s been a long and a sad goodbye / From hellos and handshakes, to kisses and lies.

Then came the bridge, and if I were a man who cried I probably would’ve lost it: And I knew, I knew I knew, I knew, All your lies were true. I probably listened to this song a hundred times over the next week. It’s a great song, and it helped me get over her, but now I just can’t listen to it, not even once. Thanks for the help, Ryan, but to me that song no longer exists.