Actually, I think it's about the exerience of a negative realtionship; the overall tone of the piece is very reminiscent of Radiohead's "True love waits". A guy saying, hey, I'm don't want to get this messed up. In the first verse he's saying he can see what is going to happen and he cannot feel within himself any hope in the justification of the negatives of the experience- this is not love, in other words. How can this be love "When you've got to feel it in your bones,"? In the second verse Thom goes on to say he has taken on the realtionship and all the bad things he's expected have come to pass. He can't climb the stairs and he's moved onto using painkillers and antidepressents to get through the experience. The third verse goes on to bemoan tyhe loss of social staus by being isolated in the realtionship- old drinking friends gone, the fanzuine friends you had- no one laughs at your jokes, no one joins you on grand adventures. "I used to fly like Peter Pan" seems a direct reference to the uni boy who never grew up lifestyle- the lifestyle of an artist. In approaching another there is a monstorous chance that they are going to be a member of the status quo, the rational world. Hence, Thom is saying that he has been forced to grow up, change from the routines and lifestyle that he had, and has become just another face in the crowd. Least that's what I think.