Tayvis, PDAs and what parasocial relationships can teach us about love

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are bringing back the PDA. And you know what, I'm here for it

A question many of us may have been asking ourselves the earlier half of the week: why am I, a 36-year-old woman with a busy professional life, watching endless videos of popstar Taylor Swift snogging a 6"5 American football player?

But I could not get enough. Watching Swift smooch tight-end (insert side-eye emoji) Travis Kelce on the dancefloor, I felt like a proud BFF watching my sweet, deserving bestie utterly high on romance, getting over what sounds like the breakup from hell with the help of 1.95 metres of super-rich, hairy-chested man candy. And not just any man candy, but an out-and-proud fan of her music ‒ sneak vids from fellow partygoers showed Kelce singing along to her hits You Belong With Me from the DJ booth (sample lyric: She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts/She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers ‒ not any more, Tay!) and canoodling on the dancefloor to a remix of Love Story. The man who blagged an intro by making her a friendship bracelet (iykyk) and bringing it to her concert in hope of meeting her.

These after-party PDAs should have felt cheesy and ostentatious, but they didn’t. Swift is on top of the world right now and fans like me love to see it. I couldn't help feeling a contact-high of glee at Kelce (whose day it was, really, not hers ‒ his team having apparently won something called the Super Bowl?) loving our girl out loud like this.

‘Who cares?’ commented angry NFL bros under news outlet social posts on the couple, incensed that their sport’s season had been dominated by a blonde fringe and her posse of star pals. The answer was me (hi, I’m the problem, it’s me). Unfortunately, I have form when it comes to getting way too involved in Taylor Swift's love life. Following the jumpscare announcement of her breakup with Joe Alwyn in spring 2023, I penned a sad op-ed in The Independent about what this meant for Swift and her oeuvre (I know. I know). The paper’s editors are responsible for the rather embarrassing headline, but it’s no lie. I really was bereft.

Because to me, that relationship was synonymous with the best of Swift's songwriting and vocal output: the Lover album, the lockdown albums Folklore and Evermore ‒ two of my most-played albums of all time ‒ some of her most heartfelt and searing lyrics. So far, it still is, even the break-up, as evidenced by the Grammy-winning Midnights. Although we, the fandom, now know that Alwyn was equal parts MI6-level secrecy and hot-and-cold affection, anyone who’s ever listened to the live-in-Paris cut of Cornelia Street in the dark with a whisky (really? you’re missing out) surely could not help but feel that this was a crushing blow to the singer’s trajectory. Maybe Alwyn hated public displays of affection, but Swift had certainly made her feelings for him crystal clear, in every audiovisual medium going.

I'm somewhat of a snobby, fairweather Swiftie: I like to keep abreast of the fandom’s chatter on social media, but I would never get involved in their famous pile-ons. I wasn't a fan back in her first, yeehaw country era, though I've grown to appreciate some of that early 16-year-old songwriting (Our Song is a banger, sorry). I wasn’t in the know enough to have pre-ordered the Midnights album to get the pre-sale code for her tour, so had to wait for general sale like a muggle. So I’m befuddled by my tendency to emotionally piggyback on her love life. We’re breaking up with Joe? What does this mean for our ability to turn out a perfect banjo-laden folk ballad? Wait, we’re dating a football player? That’s not very us.

Psychologists call this a parasocial relationship. Consumers increasingly relate to public figures to the point of feeling like we know them, surely not helped by daily social media peeks into their lives and homes. One of the weirdest of this genre might be the George Ezra fan that thought she was having a romance with the popstar when ‘he’ messaged her on Instagram. When my boyfriend refers to ‘your girl’ ‒ as in, ‘Your girl was on Jimmy Fallon the other night’ ‒ I know he means Taylor.

“Of course I feel I know Taylor ‒ I've essentially been reading her diaries for years”

So my 2023 Alwyn Blues followed by my 2024 Kelce-phoria were, perhaps, understandable. Swift’s a couple of years younger than me and, like me, has struggled to find the right guy for her. Watching her life can feel like looking back at a past me, albeit on a megastar scale, whether she’s putting up with an unappreciative boyfriend or crushing on someone who makes her feel like a queen. Know your worth, I want to say to her. Think about how their plans might derail your plans. Don’t blow it all on the wrong guy. And of course I feel I know Taylor better than I do ‒ by listening to tracks like Delicate, Lover and You’re On Your Own, Kid, I've essentially been reading her diaries for years.

When I look back on that ‘devastated’ Independent op-ed, what I see is my own insecurity about love. While it took Swift until the age of 28 to find someone who she felt really saw her, appreciated her and knew her better than anyone, it took me another six years on top of that. Six years into the Alwyn era, fans had deduced from songs and lyrics that they were destined to stay together and likely already married. Her lyrics had gone from forbidden lust to cautious contentment and ultimately, unshakeable conviction. What the breakup announcement and Midnights era taught us is that the rollercoaster ain’t over, even when you think it is. After all that foundation-building, could my rock-solid-feeling relationship be just as likely to tank, suddenly (in an announcement confirmed to the press by PR-to-the-stars Tree Paine)?

Probably not, but it shook me up. Equally, seeing the fizz of new romance and how loudly and proudly Kelce is dating her gave me joy. We all deserve that ‒ someone who will really listen to our words and make a friendship bracelet because we suggested it, or scream-sing our lyrics at a cool frat boy party. Kelce knows it’s fun to be a Swiftie and he doesn’t always need to be the star. To be loved out loud, in public like that? We all want that, whether we admit it or not.

So maybe parasocial relationships aren’t all bad (especially when they’re in the BFF/’past you’ vein, rather than a romantic involvement). Someone once described Swift to me the songwriter ‘for girls who have a lot of feelings’, and that’s spot on. Her movements, as well as her songs, have made me reflect on my feelings at various stages of life and love. As well as being fun to dance to at parties and cry to on long train journeys, she’s made me feel that it’s okay to say how you feel, demand what you want and write about what you’ve been through. Women’s stories matter, she seems to say, whether they’re taking place on the world stage or in a bedroom in a small town hardly anyone has heard of.

Swift’s last album, and her yet-to-be-dropped new one for spring, also prove that music ‒ switch that out for whichever creative lane you’re in, writing for me ‒ can certainly help you speed past heartache. (I vividly remember refusing to get back together with an ex-boyfriend at 23, having spent the entire autumn since we parted listening solidly to Beyoncé’s album 4 ‒ the one with Best Thing You Never Had and Who Run the World. ‘I can’t just fall back in love with you after all that Beyoncé!’) I’m all for processing your thoughts constantly, whether that’s with diary entries, song lyrics or hashing out the finer points of a celeb break-up with a good friend.

Girly Shit I’m excited about this month:

Because, if you’ve read this far, you probably like a bit of Girly Shit.

• Wicked Little Letters (in cinemas 23 Feb) This film packs a double whammy of Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley (above). If you’re anything like me, that’s reason enough to watch, but the trailer also looks incredibly batshit, with anonymous insulting letters, physical fights and plenty of Irish swearing involved. Add in the fact that’s it’s a female director? Sold.

• Beyoncé’s country era Has anyone else just had Texas Hold ‘Em on repeat for the last 48 hours straight? Bey’s wearing spurs on her thigh-high stiletto boots and cowboy hats on her blonde weave, and I’m enjoying the campiness of it all. I can’t wait to hear what comes next (and I hope rumours are true that a follow-up to barnstorming Lady Gaga collab Telephone could be in the mix…)

• One Day, Netflix Oh god, oh god. I’ve only watched the first three but I can see already that Ambika Mod is about to break my heart for the second time in this adaptation of David Nicholls’ novel One Day. I’m yet to be sold on Leo Woodall as Dexter, but their chemistry is great. I know what happens and yet I’m still willing them to see the light. Great TV.