What We Can All Learn from Taylor and Travis

Or, karma is the guy in the stands

Salvation came in the form of a Tweet from Hugh Grant. I’d spent the entire weekend wondering why I - a middle-aged woman, whose entire Taylor Swift interest lies in telling the story of the time I accidentally hugged Emma Bunton in the VIP area of one of her earlier tours to anyone who will listen - was so obsessed with the Travis Kelce / TayTay romance. Why was I gazing fondly at clips of him dancing to Shake It Off? What had me watching every video of him soft-shoe shuffling alongside her on the Sunday Wembley show? Why do I now know the name not only of his brother but also his sister-in-law and their children? The answer was #tequilashots. Not mine. Hugh’s.

On first reading it would be easy to assume that Kelce was just holding a party in the VIP area and Hugh got to be a part of it but anyone who has ever taken their partner to a work event knows it goes much deeper than that. Kelce gets it. He gets that Taylor’s career is the most important thing to her and if he wants to be on a par with it - let alone get ahead of it - then he needs to make it important to her too. He has to show up for her. And god, that’s sexy.

Finding a partner that views work in the same way that you do is hard. My least favourite question on a dating app is “what are your hobbies” because, to be frank, I don’t have many and most of them relate to my work in some way. I like to attend self-development workshops, I read a lot of books, I do some yoga, I am always up for anything which ends with “…and then we’ll all get naked and dance under the full moon.” But the thing I love talking to my friends about the most is work. What are they doing with their businesses? What is happening with their teams? What have they learned from their new job? How am I getting on at work? What is my next goal? I’m a work-geek and proud. Finding a partner who matches that, without taking over, has proved a task as gigantic as the guy from the Chiefs.

What that Tweet showed, however, was that Kelce gets the game. Yes, he’s there to support his girlfriend but support doesn’t just mean show-up, it means actively help her do a good job. He worked the crowd, collected bracelets from enraptured Swifties and, of course, made sure that everyone in the VIP tent had a good time. He got that his job was to make her look good by association and he delivered. The only other couple I can think of that show this understanding of the blend between personal and professional is Posh and Becks but as always, the Americans have done it bigger and better. (Although I reserve the right to take this all back if Kelce is ever caught shagging the nanny).

There’s been a lot of chat online about how Travis is a man who can finally appreciate a successful woman. I’d argue that this actually isn’t that rare. There are a lot of men (and people in general) out there who like dating successful women because they appreciate the reflected glory. What’s more rare, and what I think we see in Travis, is someone who likes dating a talented woman. The problem with dating people who like successful women is that they want to be thought a part of your success and so they can’t help but try to insert themselves into the process. You’re subjected to a litany of “have you thought about…?” or “I’ve had an idea on how you can…”. Eventually just basking in the reflected glory isn’t enough for them, so they want to make sure the world knows you’re only there because of them.

Someone who enjoys talent, however, isn’t interested in the spotlight but the work that goes on behind the scenes. They want to learn rather than inform. It’s only possible to do this when you can put your own ego to the side and admit that - in this area anyway - you’re never going to be on a level with your beloved. That’s a big ask, particularly if you don’t have an area of your life where you feel like you’re the superstar and your beloved is learning from you. What Kelce shows by boogieing away all moony eyed, is that he’s happy to be in her shadow here. His ego doesn’t need to claim that he wrote her songs or that his cameo was the best part of the show. He’s here for her talent, not her success.

Once I was locked into my Taylor / Travis social media wormhole, it didn’t take long for me to find a clip of him talking about how he’d tried to get backstage to meet her at an earlier concert, before they’d started dating, and she’d turned him down. His ability to laugh at himself - and the fact that he got the girl in the end - has delighted the internet. What delighted me, however, is not that he set his sights on someone and then kept going until he got her but that once he got her, he seems delighted to stay exactly where he is. This isn’t the thrill of the chase but the celebration of knowing that you’re content with what you’ve got. He now knows the private Taylor as well as the public one, and he likes her just as much. He’s seen her beaten up and broken, and he’s here for it.

If you’re a woman with a big career it can feel incredibly vulnerable to let someone see the side of you that needs picking up at the end of a long day. Often that vulnerability comes from the experience of dating people who say they like “strong women” only to run at the slightest sign of weakness.

There’s something beautiful about a partner who can lift you up at your lowest but who also helps you stand on your own two feet. They’ll put you back together, give you the motivation to keep going and remind you that you too can do this with a broken heart. They don’t want you to be “successful”, they want you to do the thing that makes you happy. They want you to remember who you are at your best and bring her back to life. What a gift that is. And no wonder Travis Kelce is now the internet’s boyfriend.

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