After years of one-sided commitment, revisiting Chappell Roan's hit song 'Casual' finally gave a 30-something woman a reality check, prompting her to end a pattern of dead-end relationships.
The Fantasy of Commitment
On a two-and-a-half-hour phone call, a woman discussed hypothetical children—naming a daughter Sadie or a son Leo—with a man who explicitly said he did not want a relationship. Yet he also said, 'I told my mum about you. She wants to meet you,' fueling her fantasy of a future together, complete with an apartment and approval from his friends.
This mirrors the fantasy Chappell Roan describes in her 2022 hit 'Casual,' where she imagines a year with a partner: an apartment, being shown off at the pier. The woman's own vision included an apartment where the sound of his key still excited her, and friends remarking, 'I've never seen him act like this with anyone else before.' The crucial difference: in her fantasy, they had made a commitment.
First Hearing the Song
When she first heard 'Casual,' the woman was in a committed relationship. She sang along loudly to the explicit lyrics, loving the sense of unrequited yearning but unable to relate to it. Two years later, single and back on dating apps, she found herself in confusingly ambiguous relationships.
She dated people who performed commitment: offering a toothbrush, letting her keep clothes in their drawers, visiting garden centres on Saturday mornings, exchanging favourite books, and saying how well she'd get on with their sisters. It was the fantasy—imagining what could be instead of what was—that made it intoxicating.
The Dopamine Rollercoaster
For months, she rode a dopamine rollercoaster that soared when the fantasy was fuelled and plummeted when reality hit: a three-week delay in replying, an accidental nude meant for someone else, or an Instagram photo with an arm around another girl. She doesn't believe the ambiguity was intentional or malicious, attributing it to a universal craving for connection. But by her mid-30s, the fear of wasting time on someone who would never commit grew louder with each birthday.
She found herself in another undefined romance, this time long-distance. Her sister asked, 'Do you really want to wake up in two years and find you're still in a long-distance situationship with someone who's unwilling to commit?' She wasn't sure, questioning why she needed commitment to feel safe when she already had chemistry and connection.
The Reality Check
That night, on her walk home, 'Casual' started playing in her headphones. She heard it for what felt like the first time. As Roan sang, 'I hate that I let this drag on so long, now I hate myself. Hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell,' she heard the anger, humiliation, and self-abandonment—emotions she had buried. She realised she had fallen in love with the possibility of someone, ignoring their words while responding to their gestures, and lost sight of what she actually wanted.
The Aftermath
The next day, she asked her latest 'situationship' if it would ever become something more. That conversation ended the relationship, and she hasn't been in one since. Now, when someone says 'We're not together,' she listens—rather than getting swept up in a fantastical future involving Sadie, Leo, and a house in the country.
