Taylor Swift’s American ELLE cover was released earlier this week featuring her essay about the 30 lessons she’s learning before turning 30. It was a full-bodied piece about empowerment and growth, about reflection and self-interrogation in search of improvement AND it came with gossip bonuses, not unlike the gossip bonuses she used to include in her liner notes, giving hints to her fans about who certain songs might be about. Here is Lesson #16:
Before you jump in headfirst, maybe, I don’t know...get to know someone! All that glitters isn’t gold, and first impressions actually aren’t everything. It’s impressive when someone can charm people instantly and own the room, but what I know now to be more valuable about a person is not their charming routine upon meeting them (I call it a “solid first 15”), but the layers of a person you discover in time. Are they honest, self-aware, and slyly funny at the moments you least expect it? Do they show up for you when you need them? Do they still love you after they’ve seen you broken? Or after they’ve walked in on you having a full conversation with your cats as if they’re people? These are things a first impression could never convey.
It’s general enough that it could be general. But, also, it could also apply specifically to who it was that taught her the lesson to begin with. And if you consider her romantic past, the person who best fits the description: Tom Hiddleston. Tom and Taylor happened QUICK. One minute they’re dancing together at the Met Gala, the next minute she’s speeding down the highway in his “Getaway Car” away from Calvin Harris and they’re kissing on the rocks in Rhode Island, meeting his family in England, and sightseeing in Italy, before jetting off to Australia.
Or, you know, it could be no one in particular, just a generic FYI about taking time to get to know someone before romancing them around the world. You know my view of it though: Taylor is still that girl.
Here’s Tom, the possible Lesson #16, in London today with his dog. I really wanted her to do a video for “Getaway Car”. As mentioned a few times before, it might be my favourite song off reputation. Maybe if she made a video though, it would be way too obvious. You know what would be a baller move on his part though? Carpool Karaoke. And this is the song that comes on.
