Psychoactive

So I'm standing in the lineup at the cash register eavesdropping on the conversation the young woman ahead of me is having. I'm doing this because she is beautiful and sexy and I have this irrational curiosity about beautiful and sexy women. I can't explain it.

Anyway, she and the guy at the cash are discussing some recent research that says music can have effects on the brain similar to psychoactive drugs. And she says, "That's why concerts are so popular because you can combine both."

Okay, a laugh line and the guy at the cash appreciated it.

But I thought back to a girl I knew in university and she told me that one of the things she always looksed into with guys she was interested in was music. "It's a bad sign when a guy has a huge collection of music," she said.

That made me quite defensive because I had a large collection of music.

She went on to say that she definitely started looking for the exit when she met guys who used music to control their moods. "You meet these guys who just have to have it on all the time and they listen to songs that make them romantic when they want to be romantic, music that makes them calm when they want to be calm and music that makes them angry when they want to wake up."

And the thing is, there is something to that. Guys like that tend to be a little weird and creepy. There is nothing wrong with mood music of course. But there is something wrong when it has to be there. I had a girl friend who used to have to get up and go put music on every time we started kissing in a  serious way.

It's not that use of music or drugs to provoke psychoactive reactions is necessarily the cause of anything. But it's a marker and that woman all those years ago had a point. Any time you see that sort of thing, it pays to start being wary.