the friend who skips your song eight seconds in

Marcus arrived at the function at 8:02pm. By 8:04pm he had the aux cord threaded between his fingers like a man defusing a bomb only he could see. He would not surrender it for the next four hours. He would not surrender it during the toast. He would not surrender it when the pizza came. This is not a party anymore. This is a hostage situation with snacks.

the eight-second guillotine

Here is how it goes. You wait. You wait through his ambient intro, his "wait this next one is CRAZY," his little producer-nod he does at nobody. Finally there is a lull. You lean over, you queue one song. One. A song that has never hurt a single person on this earth. A song people at a wedding would cry to.

Marcus lets it play for eight seconds.

Eight. I have counted. I have a stopwatch now because of you, Marcus. The intro has not even resolved. The beat has not dropped. We are still in the part where the artist is just breathing near the microphone — and I watch your thumb descend like the hand of God and SKIP it. Not pause. Skip. Into oblivion. Gone. And what replaces it? A nine-minute-and-forty-second "deep cut" off a record that exists exclusively so that men named Marcus can say "off the deluxe, actually" at a birthday party.

Nobody asked for the deluxe. Nobody asked for the intro to the deluxe. Nobody asked for the four-minute instrumental bridge in the MIDDLE of the deluxe where it's just a saxophone having a breakdown.

the receipts

I want to be fair. I want to be a fair prosecutor. So here is the tape.

• 8:47pm — I request one (1) song. You say "yeah yeah yeah for sure." You do not play it. You play something else. You play it AT me.
• 9:15pm — Sarah requests a song. You say "oh that's a good one" and then queue a live version. A LIVE version, Marcus. Eleven minutes. Half of it is a crowd from 2011 clapping.
• 9:52pm — I catch you skipping a song that I did not even request, purely on the principle that someone else might have enjoyed it.
• 10:30pm — You Venmo-request me $3.50 for "gas" from a ride where I sat in the back and was not allowed to touch the music. Three dollars and fifty cents. To be silenced.
• 10:31pm — You play the nine-minute one again. On purpose. Looking at me.

The nine-minute song came back around like it owed you money. We heard it twice. We will hear it in our dreams. There is a saxophone living in my walls now.

If this pattern of "I asked and was denied, then billed" feels familiar, you already know it lives rent-free in the group chat, where the phrase "can I get aux next" has never once resulted in anyone getting aux next.

"trust me"

The two most dangerous words in your vocabulary. "Trust me." You say it before every skip. "Trust me, this is better." Better than WHAT, Marcus. Better than the thing I chose? The thing I, a person with a functioning nervous system and a Spotify Wrapped I'm proud of, selected specifically for this room?

"you don't get it, it hits different after the third listen." — you, at 10:41pm, forcing a fourth listen.

I do not want it to hit different after the third listen. I want it to hit correct after the first listen. That's what songs are for. You have turned a party into a lecture series. You have a captive audience and you are teaching a masterclass nobody enrolled in titled "Why The B-Side Is Actually The A-Side If You Really Think About It."

We did not come to think about it. We came to eat mozzarella sticks and dance for four minutes. You gave us a nine-minute sound bath and a pop quiz.

the DJ nobody hired

Let's be clear about the crime, because it is not "having taste." Having taste is beautiful. Having taste and keeping it to yourself is a gift. The crime is the dictatorship. The crime is guarding the aux like it's the last helicopter out. The crime is the specific psychological warfare of letting my song breathe for exactly long enough that I get hopeful — my little heart lifts, I think he's letting me have this one — and then the skip. The betrayal is baked into the timing. It has to be eight seconds. Seven would be honest. Ten would be mercy. Eight is cruelty engineered.

And here's the thing, and I need you to hear me: we love you. We would help you move a couch up four flights on a Sunday. We would drive to the airport at 4am. We would lie to a cop for you (a small lie, a parking thing). You are ride-or-die and we are ride-or-die back.

But you are also a menace with a charging cable, and menaces get cards.

Not a lecture. Not a confrontation where you say "trust me" and we all die a little. A card. Anonymous, so you spend a week eyeing everyone at brunch wondering who counted the eight seconds. (It was all of us. We compared notes. There's a spreadsheet.)

So this is the intervention, delivered the only way that actually lands — funny, petty, and impossible to skip. Make him one. Put the nine-minute song in it. Put the $3.50 in it. Write the card he can't skip.