From analog to digital: Go to this brilliant website, www.cassettefrommyex.com, to listen to various cassette mix tapes people held on to that they received from past relationships and crushes. Along with a photo of the actual cassette tape, each mix is prefaced and contextualized with its surrounding circumstances and back story.
Kate was sweet enough to present me with this cassette after I had one-third of my toenail removed. The growth cells were cauterized so there’d be no future growth, but this also meant hours in front of the TV with my feet soaking in epsom salts. Her dedication, too, was kind and considered: “Music to Soak Your Toe To:”
Making a mix tape for a crush or someone in the early stages of dating is an engrossing act that requires all your facilities and time. One can't just half heartedly or flippantly create a mix tape. No. It's a gift that contains your aspirations, fears, and indeed a part of your soul.
Of course, for those of us who still remember using cassette tapes, that medium specifically heightened the drama or significance of the act of creating a mixtape: It stemmed from the permanence and the forced ordering of the songs. There was no shuffle option or mixing within a larger music library the way you do today with iTunes. When you picked up and inserted that tape into the boombox you were going to listen ONLY these songs in a predetermined order as established by the mixtape giver.
The only agency or choice the receiver had was to start with side A or side B.