The Meaning of “Just Give Me A Reason”

This song to me sums up the fragile nature of relationships and the variances in the emotional demands of each person in the relationship. When I listen to this song I can relate to pieces of it. I realize this translation is going to be highly offensive to women. I also realize that I am writing about a male/female relationship. I am only doing this because that is what the song is referencing, all other relationships I leave to you. This is what the song means to me.

Pink made the following quote to spotify: “Sometimes [one partner] can be like, ‘The way you passed me the butter this morning, I kinda feel like we’re going to be over in a month and we need to talk’ and he’s like, ‘I just passed you the f—ing butter, what are you talking about?’ and that’s how I felt the song should go, ‘We’re growing apart, you don’t spoon any more, like it’s all over’.”

Her quote fits typical characteristics of the needs of the average woman and serves as a perfect illustration to the severe differences in emotional needs of men and women. The song to Pink is about the desire to hold onto a relationship when it appears to be breaking down but the song doesn’t just tell her side of the story there is also another viewpoint on it.

Here we go!

Right from the start
You were a thief
You stole my heart
And I your willing victim
I let you see the parts of me
That weren’t all that pretty
And with every touch you fixed them

With every relationship there is what is referred to as the courtship which is where one person lets another person know that they are very interested in them. This can be followed up by special surprises, flowers, or acts of generosity where the person has clearly gone out of their way to accomplish.

Sometimes the courtship is successful and a spark ignites between two people. They proceed into a blissful state of love where no one can do any wrong and they accept the other person in their entirety.

Unfortunately, the courtship phase of a relationship can last anywhere from 1 day to forever. Eventually the euphoria dies and the reality sets in. You realize that the person is or isn’t who you thought they were. You find faults harder to accept and you begin to understand that you cannot keep giving this other person all of the attention you gave them in the courting process.

Some people don’t understand that this is a temporary state and some people expect to be courted for eternity but realistically no one has time to make every hour of everyday about another person. So when all of this stuff fades away and a realistic era emerges the surprises are less powerful and less frequent. It can be rather shocking to realize that you are not their only obligation and if you go out once a month you are lucky. Instead of treasuring what they have they instead become resentful claiming that they rarely spend time together anymore.

Now you’ve been talking in your sleep, oh, oh
Things you never say to me, oh, oh
Tell me that you’ve had enough
Of our love, our love

This part to me is delusional. It’s a catchy way to visually represent the untold. Unfortunately nothing has really been said and these are things that Pink has made up in her head because of the way she was feeling.

Just give me a reason
Just a little bit’s enough
Just a second we’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again
It’s in the stars
It’s been written in the scars on our hearts
We’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again

She’s now starting to doubt her delusions and is seeking a reason to prove herself wrong. Claiming we aren’t broken we’re bent is an attempt to degrade the seriousness of the situation. This becomes reinforced by positive thinking of learning to love again and then her belief that they were meant to be together because of fate.

Even though he may not have understood or shared her feelings he is making a new commitment with her to figure this out, “learn to love again.” Meaning they once had this relationship on lockdown for both of them and they need to get back to where they once were.

I’m sorry I don’t understand
Where all of this is coming from
I thought that we were fine
(Oh, we had everything)
Your head is running wild again
My dear we still have everythin’
And it’s all in your mind
(Yeah, but this is happenin’)

What is real for Pink isn’t real for her partner. Males do not have the emotional needs of females so we carry on with our day to day business in a comfort zone taking care of business and getting on top of the world.

During this time our attention level to our partner goes down to possibly a point where there are weeks when we rarely see them or say much to them. To a male this does not mean the relationship has changed in any fashion, it just means that we are busy taking care of things. But to a female, this is usually the end of the world.

When they make us aware of their feelings it is a major setback to the creation of our empire. We are usually shocked and incapable of understanding. Our worlds can be turned upside down in seconds without us seeing it coming. We are oblivious to a great many things and when we get going in a pattern or we are working on some project there are days that even I just want to be alone to myself and my thoughts.

To women on the other hand; a hug, a kiss, saying I love you, or simple acts mean a lot. Woman want to know that you are thinking about them while you are away and unfortunately for men who are working, it’s really impossible — we simply do not think about them when we are busy working. After working we are usually mentally and physically exhausted where we need to relax or sleep. But our woman has been waiting anxiously all day for us to come home so they can talk to us or see us.

This problem can be alleviated if both couples work because it provides a greater understanding of how mentally and physically exhausting a job can be and they come home together in a similar state of mind. When one person stays at home and the other works it can create a lot of resentment and misunderstanding because their thought processes and responsibilities are so far different.

It would behoove of any guy to get themselves a calendar or sticky notes that remind them to do something special once a week for their woman or to make an effort to spend whatever time you can muster up with your partner.

You’ve been havin’ real bad dreams, oh, oh
You used to lie so close to me, oh, oh
There’s nothing more than empty sheets
Between our love, our love
Oh, our love, our love

Here is the mistake that every male makes at some point. This is a write off of and devaluation of their partners feelings and concerns. He is now turning the responsibility of her feelings to her instead of attempting to acknowledge his role and responsibility in how she feels.

Pink maintains the position that whatever the case, this is really happening for her.

Oh, tear ducts and rust
I’ll fix it for us
We’re collecting dust
But our love’s enough
You’re holding it in
You’re pouring a drink
No nothing is as bad as it seems
We’ll come clean

The relationship has been hard and they are committing to work together to fix it. The relationship has been on a back burner for awhile but they still love each other although their are problems that each is avoiding, one by withholding and the other by drinking, but in the end the problems weren’t as bad as they thought.

Final Thoughts

I’ve been in relationships before where to me everything was perfect and everyone was content. This has allowed me to accomplish bigger and greater things at work which allowed me to make more money, take my family on vacations, and get them everything they wanted.

The downside was that I was occupied for large quantities of time as I worked beyond 40 hours a week and when I wasn’t working I was thinking about work. My mind wouldn’t stop no matter what I tried. Eventually I would come to points where I felt so mentally exhausted that I became unproductive oftentimes sitting and staring for long periods of time or playing video games to ignore the work load I had created for myself.

From this I became very resentful and felt very unappreciated. For all the things I was doing just for my family I honestly received little benefit to myself because I am a low maintenance type of person that doesn’t require much.

To top this off, the people I’ve been in a relationship with become extremely demanding and would always diminish the value of my hard work claiming “they don’t care about money” and then this is eventually followed up by “i just wanted you”.

In my opinion and experience the “i just wanted you” line is an overused line to sum up a bunch of bullshit. The reason being is because by the time they figure out that they just wanted you, they wanted a bunch of other things first that put a demand on you in the first place to go out and bust your ass.

Whether it’s a car, eating out, clothes, houses, vacations, trips, beer money, they want to be taken care of and not have to work, or anything that costs money, us as men don’t have a lot of financial needs just by ourselves. Of course we aren’t going to go out and just meet basic needs because that doesn’t seem to be enough for them.

Maybe somewhere out there is a woman who is okay with a guy who just makes enough for the house, car, and food, but there’s always a problem of “you spend all your time at work and don’t make enough for us to go do anything, why don’t you find a new job or go back to school” speech.

And if you don’t work and give them all your time then things get even worse, no woman wants to live in a van down by the river while raising their kids.

Let’s face it, they want that financial security in a relationship but the desire for more stems from them not from us. This builds up feelings of being used and resentment because we spend all this time working for them. They first devalue our work by claiming they don’t want the money, then devalue our self worth by threatening to leave us because we don’t spend enough time with them, and all because we work so they can have all the things that “they want but don’t want now”. Now we are too exhausted most days to meet their emotional needs.

It’s a vicious cycle!

To make matters worse, at some point we end up saying “fuck my life” but almost every woman has offers on the table they can pursue right into a courtship phase. Someone else offering to sacrifice it all for them, take care of them, spend time with them…all the things you did to win them over in the first place. Some women take the bait and leave only to end up in the same position they just left when the courting period ends.

So the relationship cycles look like this.

Some guy just said “fuck my life” because his woman left or he is leaving her because he can’t keep up. This guy thinks he had it bad so he starts courting women again in desperation throwing out lines like “i’ll take care of you, and hold you, and kiss you, and buy you all the things your little heart could ever desire”.

Meanwhile, he’s pitching this shit to a woman who’s in another FML relationship or just left one.

At some point someone needs to stop saying FML and try to work passed the courtship phase of a relationship otherwise there is never any way they can truly be happy. Eventually you’ll be too old to keep playing the courtship game and you’ll never have that one person you can rely on and trust.

I don’t usually listen to Pink but I think this has potential to be the best song she’s ever done because it has real meaning behind it.