How to date a musician
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
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Dating a musician can present some difficult challenges that often leave women feeling overwhelmed, pregnant and borderline alcoholic. Navigating such a relationship may be confusing or unfamiliar to you. However, don’t be put off by the challenge. With this time-tested guide, you and your man will be singing the same tune in no time. As my own musically blessed boyfriend once said, “While I may leave beer stains on the carpet and occasionally forget to bathe myself five consecutive days in a row, I can give you rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, texture, form, and dynamics, baby. Oh, and can I have five dollars?”
1. Rampant alcoholism and drug abuse is a given, so know what you’re getting yourself into.
When you find your man passed out nude in a bathtub somewhere with crude Sharpie drawings on his forehead, realize this is perfectly normal and acceptable musician behavior. Music is about invention, and nothing aids invention more than intoxication. So when your boyfriend’s stumbling around in a drunken stupor, just smile and hand him another beer. Any attempt to quell his substance abuse will result in the stifling of his creative juices and the alienation of his band mates.
2. Be prepared to live in filth.
Personal hygiene and cleanliness are not high on most musicians’ priorities, which means you’re going to be spending a lot of time scrubbing, washing, drying, and throwing away empty beer cans. Encourage him to bathe regularly, and reward him with beer and cigarettes when he successfully brushes his hair or remembers to vomit in the toilet and not on the upholstery. Buy deodorant and strategically place it where he can see it. He’ll take the hint.
3. Get on his band’s good side.
Encouraging the people he gets drunk with on a regular basis to think you’re a control freak isn’t going to win you any brownie points with your man. The solution? Food. Men love food, and musicians are no exception. The next time you visit your boyfriend backstage or sit in on a practice, bring in some homemade snack foods to share with the band. They’ll totally love you for satisfying their munchies, and even better, they’ll be nagging your boyfriend for more of your dishes, which means he’s got to keep you around if HE wants to stay on his band’s good side.
4. Separate yourself from the common groupie.
You’re not some desperate tag-along trying to flash your way backstage; you’re his girlfriend. Maintain a certain level of respectability and you’ll be treated like a VIP, not an STD. Behaving like a squealing fan girl puts you in their ranks; you have more dignity than that. By being the self-assured, intelligent, responsible woman you are, your musician will remember why he chose to be with you in the first place and ditch the groupies.
5. Understand that your boyfriend is married to his music first, his beer second, and then hopefully to you.
Music is his baby, his life, his ambition. You’re his girlfriend. You may be a Swedish supermodel with a graduate degree in culinary arts, but as long as your boyfriend enjoys the sound of music over the sound of your voice, you’ll never place first in his heart. If that sounds like too much to handle, then perhaps dating a musician isn’t for you. Accountants are much more reliable and make a lot more money. Plus, they hate their jobs so they won’t ever be accused of ‘working late’ in preference to being with you.
6. Get a life.
Go to his concerts, advertise his music, buy him shiny new instruments if you can afford it, but cultivate some interests of your own. Let your own creativity shine through and your relationship will improve immeasurably. You’ll serve not just as a source of inspiration to yourself, but to him as well. And who doesn’t want a song written about them?
Comment
Haha I love it!!
— Donovan · Oct 8, 11:43 AM · #
Clever girl. Hope u xagerate.Luv GMJ
— Janet Santiestevan · Oct 12, 02:00 PM · #
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