Featured Essay: Paramore’s "This is Why" Inspires a Breakup

by Shelby Catalano

I keep thinking

This time, the end will be different, but it isn’t

I keep thinking (keep thinking)

The end is gonna be different, but you keep on winning

It’s January 2023. I sat listening to This is Why’s debut while working from home. Hayley’s words pierced straight into my psyche. It felt like a part of my soul lifted, hearing those lyrics for the first time—an admission. An epiphany. 

I was unhappy in my relationship, and hadn’t fully realized it until that very moment. 

While it wasn’t abuse, it was a clear neglect of the deepest parts of myself. We met at an airport after I got back from celebrating a dual 30th birthday trip with one of my best friends. He asked about the tattoo on the back of my neck, which is Alphonse’s blood seal from FullMetal Alchemist, and the rest was history. We clicked.

Or so I thought. 

He was younger than me and pursuing a music degree. Which, I’ve learned, is absolutely merciless (0 credit classes, seriously?). I respected it, and was willing to make it work despite the 1-2 hour difference and roommate situation on both sides. 

I’d moved to Seattle about two years prior and lived downtown. It was as much of an adventure as it sounds—30+ sirens a day, learning public transport for the first time, and experiencing seasons for the first time. Everything felt like a new start. I’d made it a goal, moving cross country, to explore more of myself outside of all my prior baggage and influences. I’d only just discovered in 2018 that I was asexual and queer, and made a conscious effort to meet new people on dating apps. Despite multiple attempts, no connections were made, until… let’s call him Ryan. He was a creative person, and we exchanged a joy of music and media. 

It felt fine at first. He was different enough from other men I’d dated. Surely, I thought, this would be different. 

But that’s when the incompatibilities and lies crept in.

A pattern kept repeating where he didn’t like the way I dressed. You see, reader, I dress in a goth aesthetic, and despite the internet’s praise around it, it’s not as well received “IRL.” He sported button-up shirts and slacks most of the time, with an emo haircut. He’d mentioned his mom “never let him dress alternatively.” I found it odd that he still upheld that principle while approaching 30, but what he wore didn’t matter to me, as long as he wasn’t a slob. Bodily autonomy and all that jazz.

As you can imagine, my wardrobe consisted of chains, harnesses, skirts with stockings and platform boots. More than once, he’d indicated feeling uncomfortable with my clothing choices. I told him if he had a problem he should say something. The pattern persisted.

Big man (ooh), little dignity

Big man (ooh), little dignity

No offense, but you, you got no integrity

Big man (ooh), li-li-li-li-little dignity

Other things continued to crop up. Suddenly, a chapbook I’d written about what it meant to be 31 had a cover he didn’t approve of since I was in lingerie (a one-piece teddy that wasn’t even revealing). I’d done a boudoir shoot years prior after getting fit and felt it represented my ideal self. I ended up switching the cover because of him, but told him my creative expressions were non-negotiable—that I did it out of respect for him. 

Then, I did a TikTok trend where I was in a sports bra and did some fun dance moves. Years ago I’d taken bellydance classes, and it felt like a fun way to show some of that off. 

As you can imagine, he didn’t go for that, either. 

It escalated into him lying about donating plasma because he didn’t have money. Even though I never pressured him into spending; I paid for all his parking and food while he visited me over weekends. This absence of personal accountability in the face of lies made me feel trapped and unhappy.

This continued, but when “Big Man, Little Dignity” came on, all the words snapped into focus everything I was dealing with. That being with men meant centering their experiences, and a lifetime of emotional labor having to coddle them. That had always been my lived experience. 

I loved how Big Man, Little Dignity’s musical elements tied directly into this fawn response women often have into pleasing men and performing for them. The flute symbolized this placating feeling, this compulsion, that’s been hammered into women to be demure and digestible. That even in the lines “No offense but you, you got no integrity” starts as an intense huskiness in Hayley’s voice, but then gets pulled back by the end of the line to restore its polish and softness. 

It felt like a culmination of mistakes that I’d made over and over again. Why was I putting up with it?

And then, on a snowy day, we had one last argument that made me realize I couldn’t stay any longer. The roommates were gone on a trip, and we talked about a cruise we were going to go on with his mom. I showed him an outfit inspiration—it was a black skirt with constellation patterns on it—and he clammed up and got weird. I had to pry the feelings out of him, when everything burst like a dam at once. That he “never found me attractive in boots and chains,” and that why wasn’t I strong enough to “overcome my mental illness.” 

Those lyrics kept playing in my mind, over and over again. 

I should look away because I know you’re never gonna change

I keep thinking

This time, the end will be different, but it isn’t

I keep thinking (keep thinking)

The end is gonna be different, but you keep on winning

So I did. I left and never looked back—but this song helped me piece together all the reasons why it never would’ve worked in the first place. Not long after, I met the love of my life, a woman, and I’m grateful for their music being a helpful tool for me to look inward and find out more about myself. That I’m queer, and love women, and am not afraid to embrace that anymore. 

Thanks, Paramore.

Shelby Catalano is a Hispanic poet and author of speculative fiction. She received her BA in English Literature from the University of Tampa. Her work has been published in Bag of Bones Press and Poetically Magazine. She’s the author of her 2022 debut poetry collection From Heartbreak to Hopeful. Read more of her work at www.shelbycatalano.com