O. Nothing specific really prompted that last post. There was just a lot on socials about the ACMs and it made me realize that EVEN IF I'm able to find something I like that won't make me sick at a southern style restaurant (something like cajun style catfish and cornbread, both of which I love) I still don't have any good memories associated with being at one and it's because of the music played in most southern style places and the nerve pain from the music.  That's what made me think of it and go on that sidetrack rant -- nothing more concrete or specific than that. It wasn't anything anyone I know said or did, just that realization on my part about why I don't have anything but pain-filled memories associated with southern style cuisine even when there's food that I can eat and do like.

There are country songs that I like when non-country vocalists cover them. I just can't stand any song sung with country style vocals. Not even when a country singer covers songs that I otherwise love like Fleetwood Mac or Joni Mitchell songs...Because it's not about the song, it's about the vocals. I actually never even saw A Star Is Born -- every time I tried I couldn't get past his vocals and the pain they caused me due to my synesthesia. I actively change the station whenever the male vocals start on the song Shallow so I've actually never heard it all the way through because of the instant pain I get from his voice. It's not about the style of the songwriting, it's about the voice that's singing it that makes country music impossible for me to listen to without pain. And I have had to leave restaurants and stores and malls and even left movie theatres over them playing even one country song. I'll mute or stop watching shows/films over a country vocalist playing during a scene. It's not a small thing and it's as involuntary as burning your hand/arm if you touch it against the inside of the oven while baking -- the only way not to get burned is not to touch something that's hot. The only way for me not to be pained by country style vocals is to not be asked to listen to it.

And. I know it might seem weird for me to say that I don't want anything to do with anyone who's involved in the country music part of the industry or to have anything in my life related to it... It might sound like an over reaction. But I've tried it before with ex-boyfriends, including exes based in Nashville and it's just not viable if they're in the country music scene or have friends in it... Because here's the thing. If I tell someone, "The music you listen to causes me physical pain, please don't listen to that around me" is a VERY different thing than saying, "Whenever you sing, the style of your vocals makes you offkey and pitchy at the end sometimes the middle portion of notes which causes me physical pain like you tased me or put lemon juice in an open cut or smacked me with a whip." The first is a request that you not listen to something when I'm around, the second seems like a cruel personal insult on somebody's voice. It's beyond dislike of a style, it's physical pain from the vocal choices of that style. There's no nice way to tell someone, "Your voice causes me physical pain" any more than there's a nice way to refrain from involuntary flinching every time they go pitchy as they twang a note. It's why I refuse to sit or stand where I'm visible to the stage for a singer who has country style vocals or who is performing a song in a country style -- it's not fair to them to make them see how much pain their vocal style choices cause me.  How then can you ask me to be friends or even polite to your friends when their music causes me physical pain? Should I lie to them about the effect their voice has on me and why I won't attend their concerts or listen to their songs? Or should I tell them the cruel truth and intentionally insult them and bruise their ego?  What is the choice I should make here if you would have me call them my friend and have them touch my life? There's no nice way for me to tell them their voice causes me pain and if I attend their shows or ever have to hear them sing, it will cause me enough pain that I flinch at every note that twangs off a true note. And that's not fair to them or to me.  It's better that we not try to be friends, that our lives not cross than to cause them pain in the honesty that their voice causes me physical pain. It's not fair to anyone to try to be friends with someone who you must either insult or who will cause you physical pain just to be in their presence when they sing....

They may be really fine people, I'm not making a judgement call on that.  But if their vocal style choices cause me physical pain, either I tell them that and it hurts their ego stands between us or I say nothing and I try to suffer in silence but I visibly flinch every time they go pitchy twanging off the true note. Either way, it's going to cause them to over-think and question and second-guess their voice or make them hate me even if they're nice to my face. 

No. There's no way for you to be involved in the country music scene and expect me to have anything to do with that aspect of your life or anyone who's in the country music scene. It's not fair to me or to your friends/colleagues to ask me to be friends with people with voices that cause me physical pain.  That's why I said I don't want to have anything to do with anyone who has country music scene as a part of their life, or at least I don't want that part of their life touching my life in any way.  There's no way to try to have both without it being cruel to them or me.

It's not over-reacting and it's not condemnation for those for whom the vocals don't cause physical pain as they do for me, it just doesn't work without causing hurt to someone involved....it just breeds cruelty and pain to ask it of me... So I don't want to knowingly do that, to me or anyone else. It just wouldn't be fair.

I'm not speaking from a place of judgement or anger when I say you shouldn't be in my life if you choose to have any part of the country music scene in your life -- I'm saying it from a place of compassion and not to be forced to be cruel or cause pain to myself or your friends/colleagues. As long as I have my hearing I'm going to have the cross-linked neurons in this body that cause my color-timbre synesthesia, and those twanging off-key vocals are going to cause me physical nerve pain every time they twang. That's just how it is for me in this body, in this lifetime. I'm not going to lie to myself or anyone else about it or try to make some compromise work that is only going to hurt everyone involved because there's no changing the fact that the country style vocals will cause me pain every time I have to hear a note with a twang on it that slides sharp of the true note..... 

There are plenty of people you can have in your life and be involved with AND be a part of the country music scene -- I'm just not one of them.  It's better I be honest about that than pretend there's a way to work around the facts of my synesthesia that would make it so you can have me in a life that involves country music, country artists, or the country music scene. Any other music scene or aspect of the music industry isn't a problem for me as a rule. Just the country music scene. And it's solely about the ways that a twang on a vocal note slides flat then sharp and the pain that causes my color-timbre synesthesia and how that makes vocalists who do that a source of physical pain to me with every note they perform with a twang on it...