This song is from the perfectly named and beautifully, melancholically poignant album Philophobia by the marvellous Arab Strap. I did this dance over a year ago now when I was in the midst of feeling a whirlpool of emotions, bought on by someone who suffers from what the title of this album means...

Every single song on this album somehow aims to describe an aspect of how that fear of love and Intimacy (that to varying degrees, so many of us have) can destroy our often weak attempts at happiness... This, by the way, is the definition of the philophobia...

New Birds, the song in the above dance piece, as with a few of them on the album, touches upon the idea of infidelity... Of coming dangerously, almost seductively close to it, but a) in this song, not going there and b) a reflection on why there is power in not doing that... Truth is, there are many reasons why people are unfaithful but I would imagine, at the root of most is an inability to have/sustain a deep intimate connection, so better/easier to share half of yourself with one and parts, fragmented aspects, with others...? It is also, selfishly, easier than just being alone, because then the sound of the darkness and emptiness that lies within, is inescapable... 

I've been that person, I'm ashamed to say, when I was much younger, who (unbeknownst to myself) was so scared of Intimacy and love that I purposefully sabotaged every attempt anyone made to get close to me, often that involved infidelity... More often it just involved doing something unkind to push them away. 

I have also been on the recieving end of this many times too... The infidelity side of philophobia and also that other side of it, the side which just aims to hurt and push you away... I don't know which is worse tbh, being the one who has philophobia or being in love with someone who does, both can be cold dark and lonesome places.

I remember being 25 and feeling so sick of myself, of who I'd become, I genuinely wanted to end my life. Sitting opposite a grown man crying and asking why, a man that I'd made cry, whose heart I had broken, simply by not feeling what he did. I knew it was part of a pattern I had been engaged in for years and I'd had enough of doing this, of having to come face to face with the pain I caused. Watching someone cry, when you have caused those tears does (and should) cause a sense of severe discomfort within you, you should never look away. It is unpleasant, ugly, but beautiful in comparison to the reality, often, that you could have avoided their pain if you had acted differently.

I had ended it à year and à day after it had first begun, poetic in someways, I wanted to think, but perhaps I was just wanting to create a meaning, other than the void which lay within me, and although no, I wasn't unfaithful to him, I had gotten together with him behind someone else's back a year and a day previously.  But I broke his heart anyway, because...because I was too scared of love, too scared of the commitment he wanted from me, but dressed it up as him not being what or who I wanted, me not being ready etc, etc. Truth is, I was, at that point, suffering from ptsd from not only growing up amidst domestic violence, but also untreated (ignored because it was too much to face) sexual trauma. So I didn't think I deserved love and felt too damaged to give it. So, to quote a phrase, I would avoid Intimacy to avoid (the inevitable, as I saw it) disappointment, except all that ever did was create disappointment, and at this particular moment in time, looking into the face of yet another man whose heart I had broken, I felt like a toxic substance and hated myself... So, I changed... Slowly, but surely...  Of course, change is never as simple or easy as saying you will change and then it magically happening. It took time, a lot of honest introspection, patience, bravery and many, many mistakes. Strangely though, I've never found lasting happiness... Perhaps it takes longer to recover from philophobia than the initial efforts to try. And perhaps, in my case, you then end up being drawn towards those who also have it... 

Karma or simply damage, as they say, seeks damage...