Dear Cuco: Dating Sucks, How Can I Do It Better?

Welcome to Lo Que Siento, Noisey’s love advice column with LA’s new romantic, Cuco. Though he just turned 20, the singer-songwriter born Omar Banos has been blowing up since he broke out of Hawthorne last year with his debut hit “Lo Que Siento.” Since then, Cuco’s dreamy lo-fi sound, versatile musicianship, and lovelorn lyrics has been making crowds swoon and scream from Coachella to Gov Ball to Mexico's Festival Ceremonia, while his Chiquito EP has continued to woo an ever-devoted fanbase. It figures, then, that our dude knows a thing or two about love and heartbreak—when he’s not just trying to figure it all out along with the rest of us. Each month, we’ll be taking your most pressing questions to give to Cuco, who’s here to serve up his best advice to help soothe love’s burn. Be sure to catch Cuco's free show with White Lung at Noisey's JanSport Bonfire Session in Vancouver on July 21.

Cuco: I think if you're trying to win over a Cancer, Cancers are very affectionate. I can't speak for everybody, but I think Cancers are some of the hardest people to read. In just my own experience, there's always an uncertainty of what we might want. We might depict the exact opposite of what we might feel sometimes. So that's a hard one, I guess.

If he's stalling, it depends on how long how's been stalling. I stalled. lt took me awhile to ask my girlfriend out. If you already have something going, and he’s taking too long to really get into it, I'd say probably just drop him. You shouldn't confuse yourself for too long.

Honestly, I can't even figure it out myself. I'm like, the most jealous person ever. When it becomes an issue, I try to just close myself off and listen to music. I just get myself out of my head, because getting in my head is my worst enemy. I try to take a step back and not overreact. Jealousy can be a good thing to an extent in a relationship, but it always depends. You can't care too much, but you also like can't not give a shit either.

There’s a risk to losing a friendship if you express those feelings, but I think it's important to get it out of the way. And even if they don't like you back, you can still preserve that friendship. It might take you a bit to get over them, but it's important to at least give yourself that closure, whether they like you or don't like you.

I’ve been in that position a lot of times, and I don't take my own advice. I've never told anybody that I liked them. Rejection is a scary thing. I’d say figure that person out first before you say anything, to know how they would react. But if the other person is gonna get weird about it, maybe that’s not somebody you want to stay friends with anyway.

It’s definitely hurting relationships. I feel like there are a lot of false standards and ideologies that people think make up relationships, and then if your relationship doesn't live up to whatever you saw on social media, it can make you start to think you’re not doing “a good relationship,” or some shit like that. I feel like it's very saturated. If you base your relationship off of social media, it can create a lot of distrust. It’s a privacy thing, too. People have more inches than they should in other people's relationships. There's a huge separation between virtuality and reality that separates a relationship. That’s not to say that everything on social media is wrong, but it makes you react certain ways about shit. It flattens interactions.

You've got to give yourself time after a relationship like that. It's about going out with your friends and just focusing on yourself—really tuning into yourself as a person and learning to be more self-sufficient. Even if you’re already a self-sufficient person, it doesn't hurt to be more self-sufficient, because after a relationship, you feel like you’ve lost a part of you. You’ve got to remind yourself of your own worth and whatnot.

I guess I feel like I struggle with that myself. But it's something that I think other people should do, because I don't have it myself, if that makes sense. I don't necessarily have that self validation. I feel like even I struggle to do it, and in the meantime, it's about riding and really just listening to music, going out. Maybe it’s the beach, maybe it’s a park. Go hang out with people, be outside and not on social media. I think social media is the worst place to go after a breakup for sure.

Damn. I've never honestly dealt with long distance. Right now my girlfriend comes with me a lot, so we’ve never had to be with being apart for more than a couple of weeks. But from my understanding, if you actually give a shit about each other, it's going to work. If you’re on the same page about it, you won't do something that puts the relationship in jeopardy. I think it can work, and if it gets unhealthy, then it's just best to cut it. It’s a hard situation to be in. I’ll have to deal with it more when I start school in the fall. I’m not looking forward to being away.

Damn, that's a bitch, because I'm the exact same way. For me, I can get into a mode of self-sabotage, where I start to believe things are too good to be true. My mind just goes to how it's gonna go wrong, or how it's not gonna work. I'm always over-caring for the people I love. Not just in relationships, but in general. I cling and push away at the same time. I still struggle with keeping myself grounded, but I that's all we can do. So with falling hard and quick, at that point you need to kind of get away from people—not become antisocial, but just get away for a bit from the person that you fell for. Especially if it’s a recurring thing, because then that's not healthy on their part, you know? It's about really taking that time away from whoever you’re getting really attached to, and remembering that you're your own person, and they want you to be your own person too.

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