I don’t know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.
It makes me nervous.
I don’t say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.
If I say, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and she says, “I don’t know,”
I start thinking : Does she really like me?
In other words
I get a little creepy.
A friend of mine once said,
“It’s twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them.”
I think he’s right and besides,
it’s raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That’s all taken care of.
BUT
if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
“Do you think it’s going to rain?”
and I say, “It beats me,”
and she says, “Oh,”
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think : Thank God, it’s you, baby, this time
instead of me.
You’re reading too deeply into the poem and looking for some sort of obscure symbolism. Like most of Brautigans other poetry, this particular poem is actually very straight forward.
Talk about the weather is normal inconsequential conversation. It’s like talking about sports or a recent news story. The poem is about the beginning feelings of love and how such feelings often cause us to read too deeply into little, meaningless and trivial details, cause us to make mountains out of so-called mole hills. You know, that point where we obsess over every tiny little thing we say. It’s about that point where we want so badly for the other person to like us/fall in love with us. That point where we feel like this all is such a big deal, almost a matter of life in death, as we ask ourselves questions like “did I just embarass myself?” “what does she think of me” “did I come off dumb” “I can’t believe I just said that” etc. etc.
The narrator is smitten. And because he’s smitten, he’s fumbling with his words and cannot even make conversation about such a basic topic. He’s reading far too deeply into the girl’s replies.
The end of the poem finds the narrator relieved. Now he’s on the other side of this thing. Some girl is infatuated with him and she’s fumbling over her own words, reading too deeply into his replies.
I do not agree with this necessarily. I think “hm….” is correct. Why couldn’t it have a deeper meaning than just the anxieties that both boys and girls have for liking each other. Some people are just waiting for the girl of their dreams to like them back. Sometimes it comes unexpectedly like the rain. In life sometimes you do have to hope for things that have not yet come to pass.
Rain is something that we always wait for. It is essential and sustains life. We never know when its gonna come or fall. But we
know it will in its own time. Oftentimes, it comes unexpectedly. Just like the love that the boy longs for the girl. He waits patiently for it but for how long he will soon have it, only the girl knows. Raining In Love for me is much like waiting, trusting and believing for something or someone that you like most.