Call me crazy but…
This past weekend I was on the phone with a guy that I semi-dated
for a minute last year, but who has now become one of my
good friends, when he said something that struck me. Now
I can’t get it out of my head, and I am thinking: am
I commitment-phobic?
Leading up to this realization went something like this.
He calls on Saturday night and asks me what I am doing that
night, a pretty standard question. I tell him, and then he
asks why I am going to this place on a Saturday night, since
my friends were somewhere else. I am hesitant, but I tell
him I am going to meet up with a guy.
He laughs. Mocking me, he is.
He asks: “Have you told him that it will only last
about six days?”
Laughs again.
My reflex normally would have been to argue a remark of this
nature, but I couldn’t because I realized it was true.
Sad but true? No, not necessarily.
It is true based on the fact that I have not been in anything
but a string of six-week relationships (if you could even
classify them in that category for such a short period of
time) in the past year and a half.
Right before my junior year I got out of a long (not quite
a year) relationship. When it didn’t work out, I was
left thinking: well, now what?
Even in that situation, though, I was telling myself: “you
can do it, make it to that pivotal year mark.” Nope.
Ah, so close though.
I have observed that this happens with a lot of relationships.
Couples come to this landmark amount of time they have been
together, i.e. six months, a year, and two years. These points
seem to be the most common times when you literally have
to step back and think: Continue? Or jump off the train?
Maybe after getting off at the next stop I have realized
that if you can sense that it is not going to go anywhere,
than why get on in the first place? Just wave as it passes
you by…
But then, how many people just let something pass them by
because they are too wrapped up in whatever to give it a
chance?
Now what does that sound like to you? Yep. A commitment-phobic.
When I think of commitment, I think of dividing all the time
I do not have enough of, saying things I may not mean, foreseeing
hurting someone or being hurt, and in simplest terms, being
annoyed.
Then I think that a commitment isn’t all bad. Always
having someone to go out to eat with, never feeling like
you have stayed in on a Saturday night even though all you
did was watch a movie, falling apart and having that person
know the simplest thing to cheer you up, knowing someone
cares about where you are that day.
Okay, it has its moments.
It carries such a negative connotation, but actually, until
the right person comes along I think everyone is guilty of
being afraid to commit.
The playboy is a softy and not just a heartbreaker, and the
vixen is a hopeless romantic and not just a flirt once she
meets Mr. Good Enough to Meet Mom and Dad.
However, what if we cannot choose whom we give a chance to,
and instead it is just something we cannot help?
If suddenly you want to call that person back, and you want
to move plans around to make sure you see them?
Even if there is a person knocking on your door that has
everything you have always wanted in someone? If that, oh,
shall we say, jump in your stomach isn’t there, you
cannot force it.
Then again, I think…if you have made up your mind that
it wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t work out,
then how will you ever know what you would have felt?
If someone is knocking on your heart, how will you ever know
how it will turn out if you never open the door?
Now that I have reduced myself to cheesy metaphors, I will
say that I am not commitment-a-phobic, I am just cautious.
Teetering behind the yellow line and stepping back on the
train.
Fair enough?
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