3 Powerful Relationship Lessons We Can All Learn from Taylor Swift

Love her or hate her, there’s no denying Taylor Swift’s cultural impact. She entered the music industry at just 16 years old and has secured over a dozen Grammys since. She's also about to wrap up a record-breaking tour, and, unlike her peers, has secured billionaire status solely from making music.

While she certainly can be considered lucky in her career, Miss Americana seems to have been particularly unlucky in love over the years. And although her past relationships have been the butt of many jokes, they also demonstrate many relatable dating do's and don’ts that we can all learn from.

Lesson 1: The Bad Boy Artist is Bad for You

In 2023, the internet was abuzz with shock after lead vocalist of the British pop band The 1975, Matty Healy, was spotted out with Taylor Swift a few weeks after she and her boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn, called it quits.

The relationship sparked immense backlash among some of Swift’s fans – also known as Swifties – who expressed concerns over Healy’s history of drug use and some of his past controversies, including allegedly making racist remarks toward American rapper Ice Spice, admitting to masturbating to Ghetto Gaggers, a pornography site that hosts videos of women of color being degraded and humiliated, and allegedly doing a Nazi salute onstage at one of his shows.

Although their whirlwind romance only lasted about a month before the two called it quits on June 5, 2023, the casual narrative spun about their relationship was debunked after the release of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), in April.

While some songs appeared to address her former relationship with Alwyn, fans were shocked to discover a huge portion of the tracklist appeared to be about her fling with Healy and the heartbreak he caused her.

Fast forward to October 2024, when Healy appeared on Doomscroll, a podcast hosted by Joshua Citarella that covers culture and politics.

Although their conversation spanned over two and a half hours, a clip near the end of the episode spread like wildfire online after Healy admitted he would not be writing about past relationships in his upcoming album.

“Last year I became a way more well-known public figure for loads of different reasons,” he said, hinting at his fling with Swift. “The only reason that I was interested in is kind of like what I was doing. So I think that a lot of artists, they become very interested in their lore, or they become interested in the things that have happened outside of their art that people know about, and they want to address that. And fair enough, do you know what I mean?”

“I used to write about relationships a lot more and stuff like that – maybe I’d be inclined to reflect on my experience as a person, and more as an artist. But I would kind of just be lying if I made a record about, I don’t know, all the stuff that was said about me or my casual romantic liaisons or whatever it may be that I’ve kind of become known for, just because I was famous. I think that that’s an obvious thing to draw from. And I’m just not interested in it,” he continued, seemingly snubbing Swift, who is known for channeling heartbreak into her music.

Healy is not the first bad boy to minimize a woman’s romantic feelings for him, and he certainly won’t be the last – Kyle Scheible, played by Timothée Chalamet in Lady Bird, anyone?

But Healy’s brief relationship with Swift and the toll their touch-and-go affair had on her paints a vivid picture of bad boy artist types that women can’t afford to ignore.

Sure, their relationship helped Swift develop one of her most thoughtful albums to date, but taking a closer look at the lyrics, it's clear that creating the album came at a cost. She simultaneously refers to Healy as “the smallest man who ever lived,” while recounting that they almost “had it all.”

While no one truly knows who and what each song is about except Taylor herself, she has spent her career demonstrating how sensitive and tender she is as a person, especially as it pertains to her romantic relationships.

One implication of being a diehard romantic like Swift is that you often find yourself giving more than you get to someone who only knows how to take. This isn’t only true of Swift and Healy’s relationship; it’s a trope played out in many films and TV shows such as Uptown Girls, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and even Gilmore Girls.

Bad boys have a way of preying on and exploiting a woman’s vulnerability. And while that may help inspire beautiful art, it has no place in a healthy and lasting relationship. Matty Healy’s eagerness to minimize his relationship with Swift and her explosive talent as an artist is proof of that.

But despite Healy being a classic example of the bad boy with toxic empathy, another lesser-known character to avoid in relationships is the unmotivated, effeminate man who makes you his forever girlfriend.

Lesson 2: Avoid Becoming His Forever Girlfriend

It's widely believed by fans that Taylor Swift and 34-year-old British actor Joe Alwyn first met at the 2016 Met Gala.

The theme was "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology," which addressed the contrast between handmade and machine-made fashion throughout history.

Embracing the official dress code “tech white tie,” Swift donned her famous “Bleachella” look with a bleach blonde bob and a custom Louis Vuitton dress, while Alwyn, like most men, wore a black suit with a fresh buzz cut.

Although their official relationship status remained unconfirmed until 2018, lyrics from her hit song “Dress,” featured on her album Reputation, allude that the two met the night of the gala and were officially linked up by late 2016 after they were spotted together at the premiere of his film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Throughout their very private relationship, Swift experienced some major ups and downs professionally. In 2016, a public feud erupted between her, Kanye West, and his former wife, Kim Kardashian, who allegedly tricked Swift into allowing him to use sexually explicit and derogatory lyrics about her in his song “Famous.”

Although it was later revealed that West failed to read Swift the full lyrics on the phone, the ferocious backlash she received prompted her to flee to England with her boyfriend, Joe, where the two went into hiding.

Fast forward six years, two Grammys, and several engagement rumors later, to April 2023, when the pair formally announced they had broken up “a few weeks ago.”

The breakup appeared amicable but sparked speculation online that was solidified after fans heard track 5 on her album TTPD, titled “So Long, London.”

Historically, track 5 has been where Swift places her most vulnerable song, which intimately details a past feeling, anxiety, or relationship.

In the song, Taylor describes a couple where one person is “drifting away,” while the other is doing whatever they can to keep the relationship from failing.

While she goes into great detail about the lengths she went to to salvage the relationship, a standout lyric of the song, where she sings, "I'm p*ssed off you let me give you all that youth for free,” resonated with many 20 and 30-something women about the ails of being someone’s forever girlfriend.

Of course, no one knows the exact reason why the two never tied the knot despite being together for six years, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lesson to be learned about allowing a jealous, unmotivated man to waste six years of your life.

Her relationship with Alwyn appeared to be the endgame for her, and the fact that it ended sparks a conversation about setting a clear relationship timeline with your boyfriend so no one’s time (or fertility) is wasted.

Even Swift herself has famously written about the importance of knowing “when it's time to go.”

Lesson 3: You Deserve a Man Who is Obsessed with You

Sometimes in love, you have to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince, or in Taylor Swift’s case, before you find your three-time Super Bowl champion.

While she’s had her fair share of heartbreak, it seems a lot of that pain has been quashed by her new beau, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce – who unabashedly pursued the pop star.

Swift is reported to have initially ignored his attempts to give her a friendship bracelet at a tour stop in Kansas City. But somehow, someone in her inner circle put him on her radar, and the rest is history.

Although there have been many questions about the authenticity of Swift and Kelce’s all-American romance, over a year in, it seems the two are completely enamored with each other.

Not only did Swift rush from the curtain call of her concert to hop on her jet from Japan to Las Vegas to watch Kelce win the Super Bowl, but she has written songs about him, not-so-subtly dedicated several songs to him during the acoustic portion of her set, and even gave him a cameo appearance as one of her backup dancers at a performance at Wembley Stadium.

In addition to publicly expressing his adoration for her as a musician, performer, and person, Kelce has also made a point to attend over a dozen of her stops on The Eras Tour, where he continues to watch her from the VIP booth in awe.

While their love story is still being written, there are some clear differences between Swift’s relationship with Kelce and her previous romances, which may be the reason for its success.

Not only was their love story able to happen because Swift was willing to broaden her horizons by giving someone more traditionally masculine a chance but, unlike her other boyfriends, Kelce is chivalrous, publicly adores her, and because he is successful in his own lane, doesn’t appear to be emasculated by her success.

He knows how to ball; she knows Aristotle, after all.

Conclusion

Many people, like Swift, have struggled in love! And while it’s easy to let the media, music, and cinema romanticize chasing bad boys, or giving all you have to someone who gives nothing in return, a relationship rooted in mutual respect and adoration is the stuff of true romance.