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a theory on how taylor and joe met in feb 2016: a thread
disclaimer: i’m basically 
piggybacking off a tumblr post here, here’s the link to the original https://lukayl.tumblr.com/post/647513692587638784/gorgeous-paper-rings-and-their-first-met-date
piggybacking off a tumblr post here, here’s the link to the original https://lukayl.tumblr.com/post/647513692587638784/gorgeous-paper-rings-and-their-first-met-date
paper rings - “The moon is high
Like your friends were the night that we first met
Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet”
In the winter, the full moon hangs in the sky
Like your friends were the night that we first met
Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet”
In the winter, the full moon hangs in the sky
most likely something happened between taylor and joe and then taylor and tom happened and they resumed it after 4th july, while august was most likely their card-shark-playing-games phase
if we place june as the centerfold and count three months back (“cat and mouse for a month or two or three”), we go back to february 2016
if we use google trends, joe alwyn had three blips in feb 2016– 15th,18th and 25th. the search places were cali, nj and florida. (cali and ny she has homes there, while florida can be when she was at her father’s place)
15th was grammy night, so it leaves us with either the 18th or 25th. calcium hydroxide had a gig on the 26th, which corresponds to “i got a bf, he’s older than us. he’s in the club doing idk what.” - gorgeous
if calcium left a few days earlier for the vegas gig, it could mean he was purposely trying to avoid taylor, hence the sadness in the lyrics. also, after the grammys night, things started to go south as stated in coney island.
taylor released a folklore chapter called “yeah i showed up at your party” in september, which includes the songs betty, the one, mirrorball, TLGAD, invisible string and cardigan
all these songs talk about fate except for mirrorball and TLGAD. however, in this reddit take we can see mirrorball could be her singing to joe. for TLGAD, rebekah’s husband bill could correlate to joe’s first acting role billy lynn. https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/i0d5z6/mirrorball_is_about_the_2016_met_gala/
to add on, taylor was criticised for her loud taymerica parties in RI, which stopped in 2016. the summer of 2016 was when things happened between taylor and joe too
“yeah i showed up at your party” could mean it was joe’s party and taylor showed up, since the date logged into google trends was the 25th and joe’s birthday is on the 21st.
perhaps she went through a common friend, since calcium was leaving taylor alone so she could have her own fun
also, there was a full moon on the 25th, so joe’s friends could be as high as the moon that night, as said in paper rings
this could also be a reference to ivy, where taylor has a crush on joe while in a relationship with calcium (and afraid of being found out)
in the lyrics from dress “flashback when you met me your buzzcat and my hair bleached”, it doesnt actually state it was the first time that they met.
in this other tumblr post, it says they might have met at the bowery gastropub. since this thread is about them meeting in feb 2016, i would say they could have met again here.
at joe’s party, maybe the mutual friend(s) was garett-lily-caleb, since the main tumblr post says it could’ve been a surprise one, which meant his friends arranged it and he had no control over who went
hi thanks for reading besties im sorry if theres any inconsistencies here ok bye ily
