Hi, hope you are doing well and staying safe. I know you don't post so much anymore, but back in the day i remember seeing you talk about how Niall and Hailee showed a lot of signs of being a fauxmance. Since Heartbreak Weather came out I've seen lots of people saying it's about Hailee, but I was curious on what you thought, and also whether you still feel it was a fauxmance? Also what is your opinion on No Judgement being about a different relationship than the rest of HW? Thanks :) x
The minute “No Direction” came out, I was 100% sure it was a fauxmance. That song title can’t possibly be anything but designed to make people assume it’s about Niall. It’s way too on the nose and attention-grabbing to be anything but PR.
The PDA pap pictures at Target or whatever store that was also made me pretty sure. Celebs who have only been dating each other for a few months wouldn’t put themselves in the spotlight like that because that would put pressure on their relationship and compromise their privacy. Only celebs that aren’t actually dating each other throw themselves into the spotlight together, because that’s kind of the whole point of fauxmances. (I’m assuming everyone is aware that pap pics like that aren’t accidental)
Niall has had plenty of fauxmances before, but we weren’t even aware that he apparently had a relatively long term relationship (couldn’t have been one of the publicized “relationships” because none of them lasted that long) until he mentioned it in an interview about Flicker. Based on his history, if Niall is dating someone, I very much doubt the fandom is going to find out and Niall definitely isn’t going to advertise it.
Based on the lyrics of Seeing Blind and a couple other lyrics in other songs, I think Niall has dated another celeb at some point. But again, I don’t think the celebrity he dated is one he’s been linked to publicly. I haven’t actually listened to all the songs in Heartbreak Weather yet, but if there are any songs in there that people think point towards Hailee, I would bet the songs are ambiguous and people are just fitting Hailee into the lyrics because of the power of suggestion. It happens all the time.
Because I haven’t listened to all of Heartbreak Weather, I don’t know about No Judgement not fitting in. I kind of doubt it because I doubt that all the songs on Heartbreak Weather are purely autobiographical. Based on Niall’s comments about his songs in the past, he tends to write a lot of scenarios that may or may not be influenced by his own life experiences.
Also, when it comes to songs fitting into a narrative- songs are often snapshots of an emotion at a certain point of time. Even if the feeling of the song doesn’t seem like it matches the feeling of the other songs, it’s quite possible that it’s just a different emotion at a different point in time in the same relationship. What I’m trying to say is that you can still write a happy song about a relationship that ended badly, just like you can write a depressed song about a relationship that is ultimately successful and happy. Good emotions are going to exist in doomed relationships and negative emotions are going to exist in healthy relationships.
