To, me the singer is not recently broken up. I think what he is describing is a feeling that all of his relationships are doomed from the start. He wants someone to be "closer closer close to me" but he knows that "someone might come over me". Or that once he brings someone close they have the opportunity to criticize him and he finds that nobody will love him because he doesn't love himself. So this man who feels that "it will never work for me" is barhopping with a friend as the wingman. "best friend so full of pretense" describes his friend who is still fooling himself into believing that the pain of breakup is worth the pleasure of unity. So when the chorus says "it's clear and bright... from the big black coffin, to the black under your eyes" means that every time he looks a girl in the eyes he can imagine the possibility of their relationship already dead and in the coffin before he even learns her name. "life is complex so why present a thing?" words fall short. He wants to explain it to someone, have someone understand and love him anyway, but if he tried he would just sound like a fool.
To, me the singer is not recently broken up. I think what he is describing is a feeling that all of his relationships are doomed from the start. He wants someone to be "closer closer close to me" but he knows that "someone might come over me". Or that once he brings someone close they have the opportunity to criticize him and he finds that nobody will love him because he doesn't love himself. So this man who feels that "it will never work for me" is barhopping with a friend as the wingman. "best friend so full of pretense" describes his friend who is still fooling himself into believing that the pain of breakup is worth the pleasure of unity. So when the chorus says "it's clear and bright... from the big black coffin, to the black under your eyes" means that every time he looks a girl in the eyes he can imagine the possibility of their relationship already dead and in the coffin before he even learns her name. "life is complex so why present a thing?" words fall short. He wants to explain it to someone, have someone understand and love him anyway, but if he tried he would just sound like a fool.