Attention

Today's installation of

Top 40 Nonsense That Makes Me Weeeeeep

is even more embarrassing than the last. I've been hearing this song on the radio for months and having heart spasms over this guy's breathy head voice. But just now I looked up the video, and it's creepy and douchey and that's not how I pictured Charlie Puth in my head at all. Even with that eyebrow scar he is uninteresting to me.

Regardless. I am a sucker for this song's slick rhythm, catchy melodies, and the longing and vulnerability I ascribe to my imaginary version of Puth, running into his ex everywhere, distraught yet somehow resigned to his heartbreak, half in love with the torture that is her perfume, etc. It's relatable, okay?

And then the song breaks it down, and his voice drops to a hush, and "Got me thinkin' 'bout when you were mine" barely escapes his throat with its note just high enough that his voice almost cracks and I feel the breath catch in my own throat because oh my god he's so emotional he can just barely sing the line. Sometimes I have to hold my chest together with the hand that's not on the steering wheel.

I am giving you not the official video, which I've told you grosses me out, but this studio performance which still conveys the emotion without all the distracting added narrative of his girlfriend smashing up his apartment. Like, fuck off, "crazy ex gf" trope.