I’m just going put it out there – I love country music. I know I don’t look like the kind of person who would love to dance around in cowboy boots, call a violin a fiddle, and ride around in my boyfriend’s huge truck. I’m not, but I grew up with the music, and it holds a special place in my heart. I’ve never really thought about why I like it or whether I fit the stereotypical listener until a few nights ago.

My parents surprised my sister and I with two tickets to the Luke Bryan concert on Sunday night. For those of you who don’t know Luke, he’s basically the Beyoncé of country music. I was pumped and so was my sister. So we went. We got shirts and $8 vodka cranberries and sat down to wait for Luke to sing. While we were waiting, I noticed the crowd. I was in a striped dress and flats, everyone else (including my sister) was dressed in some form of plaid, flannel, denim, or white lace. And I don’t just mean a few people in my line of sight. When we went to the bathroom, there were little children with their plaid shirts tucked in and cowboy boots that they didn’t yet know how to walk in. There were at least five women my age wearing the same white lace dress in a different style, denim jackets and cowboy boots. I ignored this because I didn’t think it mattered.

When the opener came out to sing, the first song was titled “Beer.” Now, I don’t drink beer. I have nothing against it, I just don’t like it. Everyone was screaming and agreeing with the lyrics that a cold one fixes everything, while I was just sitting there silently sipping my vodka cranberry. Every few songs, he would ask the country girls in the crowd to raise their beers and scream along with him. I grew up in Duluth, Minn. I don’t think I can get less country than that. I stayed silent while my flannel clad sister screamed along with him. She grew up in the same place as me, so why did she get to scream along? What made her a country girl? Then it hit me. It was all about the attitude. The whole country community came to these concerts to blow off steam and listen to songs that were essentially documenting their lives.

I was at the concert for the music, while apparently everyone else was there to enjoy the sense of community. I’m all about the general tropes of country music (love, family, drinking), but whenever I listen to songs about trucks or beer or growing up on the land my grandfather did, I feel out of place. It didn’t occur to me that I needed to identify with every song that was played until it seemed that everyone else did. When I was younger, I would pretend that the music was actually about my life. But that’s kind of a moot point now. I can’t pretend any longer.

As much as I’d like to be someone who runs a farm, gets her husband a beer, and takes night drives in his truck to have a picnic along the creek, I’m not. I’m still on the fence about what exactly it means to be a country fan, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to listen to “Shake it for Me” for the 75th time tonight.