When Love Feels Like a Performance Review

 

As a person who grew up believing that love must be earned, and that once you finally get it, you must keep performing to stay “deserving”,  it makes perfect sense why teenage-me fell straight into Depeche Mode. Especially after years of learning and unlearning myself, understanding why I did what I did, why I chose what I chose. Their music hits the exact wound.

Most of their songs force me to sit down (if I’m not already dancing to them) and think about the lyrics deeply. Maybe that’s why certain tracks are still stuck in my head and my chest until today.

But things shifted a bit when they released For The Masses, a compilation album by various artists like Rammstein, The Cure, GusGus, Dishwalla, and Hooverphonic, back in 1998. I found this album in one of my friend’s record shops in Blok M Square underground (Blok M Mall Underground, back in the ‘80s until early ‘00s) around 2015 or 2016. It was sitting on the front-row wooden shelves, both CD and vinyl. Andi Twins, the shop’s owner, immediately spotted my interest.

“I remember you like new wave, synthpop… especially the ‘80s. Have you heard this one?” he asked, handing me the vinyl.

“Never. Is this new?”

“Released in ‘98. During the reformasi era. I finally got this copy around six years ago from a friend in the States.”

Andi opened the CD, slipped it into the player, and played “Stripped”, Rammstein’s version. The moment that signature Rammstein sound blasted through the speakers, I got one of the most intense goosebumps of my life.

"One of the best compilation albums I've ever heard," he said, slow-headbanging. "Only two left, one CD, one vinyl. I can keep it for you if you want, just like the old days..." He patted my back and walked off, leaving me there trying to process whatever the hell that song just did to me.

I ended up buying the CD. I also ended up ditching the office for three days straight, just driving around the city with that album on repeat. I didn’t mind the after-work traffic. I didn’t mind taking the long, winding toll road at midnight, stopping anywhere to sleep for a few hours, or grabbing the cheapest room I could find during that impromptu escape.

All because of that fucking album.

Three days, two nights.

Just me, my car, and that compilation.

It wasn’t Depeche Mode that moved me. It was those artists, especially Rammstein’s Stripped and Hooverphonic’s Shake The Disease. The original Depeche Mode versions already made me want to hit a dance floor with a couple of Jägerbombs or a few Cosmopolitans. But these covers? They made me drive. Think. Question my life choices. The contemplation was heavy.

And I saw it clearly: the version of myself back then was kind of an asshole. Ruthless, heartless. I believed I had to take care of myself first, depend on no one, because no one would save me anyway. And to some extent, 9–10 years later, I still believe that.

But here’s the difference:

I’m not running anymore.

I’m not driving anymore.

I’m here, sitting in my room, typing, listening to those two songs on repeat again.

Earlier today, while making my checklist for my Thursday trip, that memory punched me in the gut. I’m about to revisit places that triggered something in me years ago, and it all connects to that Hooverphonic cover of Shake The Disease.

Part of me is still that person who believes love must be earned.

That to be loved, you need to constantly perform.

That love is some kind of performance review.

Part of me still believes I don’t deserve genuine care or affection unless it involves some kind of transaction.

Part of me still believes the person I choose will eventually hurt me on purpose, no matter how much history we’ve shared, no matter the respect or boundaries we built.

Part of me still believes they’ll abandon me anyway.

So why bother opening up?

I am rarely chosen by anyone.

Most of the time, people misunderstand me.

I rarely ask for help, and when I finally do, people can’t believe I’m actually in need.

It terrifies me to need anything.

It tortures me to ask.

And even now, part of me still believes I don’t deserve love, affection, or genuine care. Ever.

My shrinks and I have been unpacking all this shit for almost 14 years: abandonment issues, intergenerational trauma, PTSD, anxiety, psychosomatic flare-ups, everything that resurfaces whenever it wants. And only I can manage them, with or without meds. It’s a long journey, and when these things come back, the “light at the end of the tunnel” becomes a joke. It feels like they want to trap me forever.

But I understand myself more now, because I forced myself to learn.

Learning human behavior.

Learning Jung.

Learning Machiavelli.

Reading Bukowski and Kafka.

Everything gave me pieces of myself back, why I react the way I do, why my nervous system is wired like this, why a single song can slice through me.

And I realized: the world doesn’t revolve around me. I’m not special. Plenty of people feel the way I feel.

Photo owned by BTR Michael Kwan

I’m still struggling to believe I deserve genuine care, affection, or love.

I’m used to being taken advantage of.

I’m used to overgiving.

I’m used to being the one people rely on.

I’m used to being the fixer.

And it hurts.

And it has to stop.

But it’s hard to shake the disease; it feels like stripping myself into non-existence.

Then again…

Should I have existed in the first place?

Ubud, 17 November 2025

“Stripped” — Rammstein

“Shake The Disease” — Hooverphonic