I Was Hoping

I think this song is one about growth as a person in 3 vignettes, so to speak. I'm almost positive it is autobiographical like most of Alanis's writings. Like most of what she has done you can see a sort of spiritual enlightenment...

In the first scene of the song, she is meeting up with a married guy who is recalling a time when Alanis told him that wouldn't it be terrible if right before he died, he realized that he was this great person? And how he would be so regretful in his life. She then says "you're willing to tell me this, now?" ...because his wife is in the next room. And she quickly changes the subject...

She then says "hey..I haven't been eating chicken or meat or anything" and he responds almost talking down to her "but you've been wearing leather." And then laughs it off to say that "we (humans) are still on top of the food chain" despite her vegetarianism, and lays down the condescension heavy when he says "and yes, you're still a fine woman." She cringes because it's like he's saying.."hey, don't get down on yourself though...you tried." Like an adult speaking to a child.

The chorus says she had hoped that he had the capacity/maturity to heal or at least share in her happiness and not berate her for trying something new and the capacity to speak truthfully (be "raw") to each other without flippant chuckles devised to fill the void between awkward comments.

In the next scene, she's out with a guy who's getting shmoozed on by the old head waiter as they're leaving, and when saying "bye" to Alanis, calls her "dear." She reflects on that experience as now a wiser person who once would have pulled the "Don't you know WHO I AM?!" - card, considering that the waiter made such a big deal about her date and he's a "nobody." It's just not part of who she is now; it's petty and wasteful to spend so much time trying to convince others of your worth/point of view.

The next chorus part seems pretty self-explanatory.

"I too once thought that when proved wrong, I lost somehow." This follows a lot of what Alanis talks about in the song and sums it up. That so much energy is wasted when we spend much of our time defending our own points of view. When you cease defending your points of view, you don't have a reason to argue. No fighting and no resistence means you are free to fully experience the present. She says "it's a cycle...I'm withdrawing and guilt-tripping you." It is truly a cycle because she chooses not to argue a point of view. She then gives us an example of him pointing out someone in the emergency room caught in an altercation after beating up his child, the child then causes their dad to bleed because she threw a shoe at his head. And that he(Alanis's man) "would have had a hard time feeling compassion" for the man that beat up his own child, and she's quiet because she says that she didn't believe in revenge, right or wrong. She doesn't want to reiterate and keeps her mouth shut because she knows he'll feel judged and looked down upon.

We all want to be creamy with someone - I love that phrase that she uses. It's the ultimate in a relationship, to share with someone so much that you become one.