Taylor Swift's Secret Boyfriends You Never Knew About

Taylor Swift makes most of her relationships public, but not all of her prey (er, gentleman callers) are game for being thrust into the spotlight. These guys dated the songstress on the down low—even if most of them didn't last long.

Remember how everyone speculated about whether "I Knew You Were Trouble" was about Harry Styles or John Mayer? As it turns out, it may have been about the lead singer of the All-American Rejects, Tyson Ritter, who Swift quietly dated in 2011 between Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor Kennedy. A source told Celebuzz, "He wasn't into her world and hurt her. He just stopped calling. He kept it very quiet because he isn't a very public kind of guy. He's so private, and he wasn't into the glitz and glamour and attention-seeking like Taylor was. He's more laid back and chill." The insider added that the Ritter doppelganger in the "IKYWT" video was no coincidence, noting, "Tyson's friends even think the song is about him."

Swift dated X-Men: Apocalypse actor Lucas Till briefly after he starred in her 2009 video for "You Belong With Me." He told MTV News, "We dated for a little bit. But, there was no friction because we were too nice. Most relationships work out cause you get along and then you don't, and then you make up and it's passionate, and with us I really just liked her as a friend. That's the only reason that didn't work out." Still, he admits that Swift was a better kisser than his Hannah Montana co-star Miley Cyrus, so at least she has that, right?

Till wasn't the only music video co-star Swift dated offscreen. Apparently she got some smooching in with "Mine" video co-star Toby Hemingway. A source told Hollywood Life that the pair spent Valentine's Day together in 2010. A witness who spotted them at a restaurant said, "He was a gentleman and got her chair and also helped her out of it...they got pretty cozy."

Sources told The New York Daily News that Swift was so obsessed with Douglas Booth that "she looked like a shark circling its prey" to get his attention at a party in November 2013. "Taylor kept on making an effort to flirt with Douglas, but he kept giving her the cold shoulder and was extremely dismissive towards her...She would get a drink and then approach him; she would chat with Hailee Steinfeld and then re-approach him; she was even trying to chat him up near the flowers on display. It was all very funny for those of us watching," a spy said. The tab reports that Booth and Swift eventually went on a few dates in London, but that he called it quits almost immediately. The source dished, "He was quite taken aback about how keen Taylor was. She has been in touch with him, but he just wants to be friends."

Before he dated Lea Michele, late Glee star Cory Monteith had a brief fling with Swift. The pair were spotted on bowling dates and romantic walks around January 2010, and it's rumored that Swift wrote "Mine" about him. "This is a situation where a guy that I just barely knew put his arm around me by the water, and I saw the entire relationship flash before my eyes, almost like a weird science-fiction movie," she told Yahoo! Music. "After I wrote the song, things sort of fell apart, as things so often do...that one was sort of half-confession and half-prediction or projection of what I saw."

Swift had a brief romance with Eddie Redmayne after they met during auditions for Les Miserables in October 2011. Us Weekly reports that they went on several dates in New York and London, with a source revealing, "She developed feelings for him fast." Unfortunately for Swift, after a romp at her London hotel room, Redmayne split to enjoy the single life (and eventually meet his wife, Hannah Bagshawe).

Swift's song "Hey Stephen" is about her relationship with Love and Theft singer Stephen Barker Liles. He told Taste of Country, "Me and Taylor really hit it off and became really close when we were on tour together. We had a real emotional relationship. We talked on the phone a lot. She was really cool. One day she called me up and was like, 'Hey, I wrote a song about you.'" It turns out, Barker Liles returned the favor with his song "Try To Make It Anyway." Cute!

Us Weekly reports that Swift actually tried dating a non-celebrity, but that crashed and burned. A source said the singer dated a local Nashville college student around 2010. "Her friends were proud of her for trying to date a normal dude and trying to be part of the local college scene like someone her age would be doing," the source said. Unfortunately, her beau's starstruck friends impeded the romance. The insider said, "A couple of his friends starting texting her and trying to hang out. It got weird."