The Commitment Crisis of 2019: Part II

This is part two of a two-part series where I outline the commitment issues we are facing in present-day dating.

In part one of my deconstruction of The Commitment Crisis, I introduced you to a few men who have made me question why I continue to show up in this space called dating.

I wish I could say it were only a few.

Also, when I say “a few men,” I’m reminded of A Few Good Men with Tom Cruise and the part where Jack Nicholson boldly cries out, “You can’t handle the truth!”

The line has been sitting in the bottom of my soul since I started typing about this topic, growing louder with every clack of my keyboard.

Because I really believe that’s why we’re here.

We simply cannot handle the truth.

And I don’t mean that we’re terrorized to hear the truth. I mean that we’re sickeningly scared to speak it.

The irony is that we’re all begging for honesty, waiting with patient ears for words that no one – or, at least, most people – don’t have the vocabulary or courage to articulate.

Newsflash. It’s okay to not want romantic relationships with people. Even when those people are great. Especially when those people are great. And it’s more than okay to tell them (read, you *should* tell them).

Because liking a person for his or her greatness is not synonymous with having chemistry with said person. And coming from the girl who wrote an entire blog about sex, I am fully on board with the need for fireworks.

Sidebar. I also like to repeatedly remind myself that fireworks are not everything. I’ve had a handful of relationships that satiated all of my sexual needs but did nothing for my emotional and intellectual well-beings. I need all three if I’m going to commit my life to someone.

Commit?!

Life?!

By a show of hands, who just had heart palpitations?

Oh, that’s right, I can’t see you. Please, just go with it anyway. Fortunately for me, I do have Instagram stories. And when I polled y’all for feedback on your reservations toward romantic responsibilities, a hell of a lot of you said you were scared.

Theory. We’re not scared of commitment. We’re scared of failing.

And you can’t fail something you never started. Because that whole failure piece when it comes to people, we really don’t like it.

I’m here to argue that we’re not altogether afraid to honor exclusivity. In fact, I think that we crave it. The problem lies in the fact that we’re simply paralyzed by the Paradox of Choice (which I liken to a trip to the ice cream parlor here) or we’re living inside a story that whispers in our ears that the relationship paradigm doesn’t work out in the end.

Public service announcement. This story pays homage to your baggage, and it lies.

But we’re terrified of being woven into the fabric of another human. To meet his boss. To let her cook dinner. We’re intimidated by all the places and songs and smells that will attach us to this person. Because the more memories we make, the greater the heartbreak if those experiences are terminated.

And we’re even more scared that the places and the songs and the smells won’t be enough. Because, here’s the hard truth, sometimes they won’t be. And we shy away from any shitty conversations where we will have to tell someone that we don’t see a future with him or her for no other reason than we just don’t.

I return here to the Paradox of Choice because our paralysis stems from our inability to navigate our own emotions. We understand chemistry, but we then question if it is simply lust. We believe in love, but we then wonder if we have the capacity to feel it. We say that we want monogamous relationships, but we then choose to be alone.

Because if we say that this one person is it, then we have convinced ourselves that we are also saying that everyone else is not. And it is damn near impossible to believe that there aren’t a million more “it” potentials out there when we are – quite literally – drowning in a sea of people via, one, the social airwaves and, two, the transience of our modern-day society that is constantly barraging us with faces from around the world.

In the spirit of objectivity, let’s divide “it” by infinity. And through the power of basic math, we learn that we don’t stand a chance.

So, here we are. Suffocated by our stories that seek to sabotage us or paralyzed by our inability to choose even the most perfect person because of our preoccupation with potential.

The caveat with the suffocation and the paralysis is that, while it’s painful to hear these words roll off an interested party’s lips, we’re all begging for a truth that no one seems to have the proper training to deliver.

Because we’re dating from a place of fear.

Talk about a train wreck.

When we romanticize partnership to such a degree that we convince ourselves that there is only one single human out there who will be able to satisfy all of our needs – and we haven’t found this person yet (nor will we ever) – we have already thrown in the towel. We are succumbing to selfishness. We are ignoring our own personal investment that is required for relationship to work (I go into detail on the topic of choosing someone, and continuing that choice daily, here).

Likewise, when we sever ties with romantic partners and then we allow those severances to negatively influence our future relationships, we have no choice but to anticipate failure. Comparison will be our thief of joy. We rob a human from making an authentic impression on us. And, naturally, there is nowhere else to go but down.

Your girlfriend cheated on you?

I’m sorry.

Your ex was an addict?

Shit sucks.

These are painful traumas. Knives that pierce even the toughest skins. Wounds that have earned the right to bleed.

And, as a survivor, I can attest to the attention required to form the appropriate scabs to realistically move on from these scars. I can vouch for the courage it takes to give hope to other romantic possibilities.

I assure you, if you attempt to show up with another party without having done this work, it is detrimental to the future of the next relationship. But, in my humble opinion, we wallow here for far too long.

Because he knew your Chipotle order. And she did that thing with her bottom lip when she was sorry. And you both could exist inside of a 24-hour timeframe without ever having to utter a single word. Because, habit. Because, comfortable. Because, easy.

Newsflash. We don’t miss people. We miss routines.

So, we will sacrifice years of our lives for the days or months of discomfort that are associated with returning to the status of single. We would rather sit inside that easiness as opposed to re-learning our ways.

And, even when we’ve done the work to move forward – without going back to the infamous dating cemetery – we are still haunted by The Commitment Crisis. Because we’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and burned it. We can’t imagine having to put ourselves through that again. And to choose another person is to choose the possibility of heartbreak.

I counter. To choose another person is also to choose an opportunity to love someone in a way that you – and the world – have never seen.

But we don’t want to go there. Because we already tried. And it didn’t work. Therefore, it will never work. Or, at least, we’re convinced that it won’t right now.

Gawd, we are so resilient in areas of our lives that do not involve matters of the heart. But give us love, and we become such fragile things (in the most beautiful possible way).

In part one of this blog, I filled you in on the fact that Gemini – a guy who seemed stereotypically disinterested in commitment – showed up to engage in the “so, what are we doing here?” talk.

I actually deemed it “Superman-ing.” And, after a typical text session with one of my best friends, I realized how absolutely ridiculous it is that I glorified something that I’m arguing should be such standard protocol (because it should be standard protocol to be honest with people). So, I’m here to tell you that I still stand in awe of his self-awareness, but I’m also saddened by the fact that I’m still so astonished by common courtesy (basically, my very own real-life award for good boys).

Regardless, Gemini, kudos to you for showing up. KU-DOS.

Again, we had been talking for three months. Hung out a few times. Basically, the epitomization of casual.

I recently had a dear friend iMessage me, “How long do you get to know someone before you make it official?”

To my other dear friend who repeatedly asks me for a “Dear Stephanie” portal on my website, I know, and I hear you. If y’all want dating advice or have some fresh (read, ridiculous) content, DM me (screenshots encouraged).

I type out, “Oh gawd. I don’t do rules. They trap me. I’d say that it’s when you’re willing to have that convo with one another and you both agree.”

And when I say “agree,” I mean on timing, not necessarily the convo’s contents. If the two of you have even an inkling of intuition – and a willingness to be honest with yourselves – you’ll know.

Fortunately, our guts are intelligent ecosystems. It’s why Gemini disappeared on me for a week. Because silence is so much easier than a shitty conversation (hello, ghosting). And I say that these conversations are shitty because it’s always intimidating to walk into the inner-workings of someone else’s mind. It’s unnerving to explore another’s expectations while also attempting to check our egos.

But after three months of the wittiest banter, it was time.

And, I must say, it’s always interesting how people choose to reappear after bouts of premeditated silence.

Gemini: “Hey hey”

*purposely waits an hour to appear equally disinterested*

Me: “Hey”

Gemini: “How are you?”

Me: “Good”

Gemini: “Woman of many words”

Okay, no. You do *not* get to have an opinion about my word count when *you* excused yourself from *my* table. I am *not* sorry. And I do *not* play that game.

Me: “It’s unusual to me that you spend an entire weekend at home without even attempting to see me or get to know me. I respect your schedule, and I’ve made an intentional effort to ask you to do things that we both like to do when we are in the same physical proximity. I suppose it’s endearing that you think of me when you’re traveling, but it was cute in Bumble land. And I’m not interested in investing time in cute.”

Great, Stephanie, you just *actually* morphed into a woman of many words. And, now, this is where you *really* get ghosted. Congratulations. Thanks for playing.

Because that’s what’s going through my mind as I hit the blue up arrow to transport my message out of draft state and into the permanence of our chat log. I actually really like this guy, and my story – always whispering in my ear – is reminding me that I am too much. My story is trying to convince me that I’m not owed anything, that his week-long silence is standard, that his flaky availability is acceptable.

Not this time, Story. Not. This. Time.

And, as promised, Gemini proved me wrong. He responded. And then he continued to respond. And he apologized for his fuckboy-like silence, claiming that he had backed off in an effort to understand how he was feeling.

Gemini: “I don’t want to be anything but genuine, and I’m not sure you’re going to get a relationship out of me here.”

*sigh*

Let’s just say it took me a decent chunk of time to organize my thoughts to then formulate my words. Because, one, it is not my responsibility to plead people into choosing me. The right people know that and will prioritize it. And two, to date anyone with the guaranteed expectation of a relationship is immature and unrealistic. So, yes, I’m dating men because I want an exclusive relationship. But I wasn’t dating him for the simple fact that I expected an exclusive relationship to happen.

Newsflash, men. Women get to choose, too. 

And, going back to my sex blog, I think men are really unfair to women as it pertains to expectations. Because I find it hard to articulate – with any male – an interest in both him and a relationship without that registering in his mind as being correlative.

Yes, I wanted to progress in knowing him. Even without knowing where that progression might lead. Especially without knowing where that progression might lead. Because he’s funny and smart and adventurous. Not because I needed him to marry me.

Me: “So, what is your ideal scenario here?”

I’d like to interrupt this regularly scheduled program so you can read that again.

Because this is THE question, y’all. It is the epicenter of making relationship work – any and all types of relationships. Once we understand what others really want to get through their experiences with us, then we can be in choice around whether or not we want to show up for those experiences. When those others are silent, it eliminates our ability to choose and leaves us with one option: disengagement.

His response – and my exchange – essentially boiled down to the fact that I wasn’t going to get any more from him than I was already getting. Random Snaps. Sporadic texts. Very occasional hangouts that could potentially involve a loss of clothing (ew).

Remember when I told y’all that “friends with benefits” is so hot right now? Well, if you missed it, you can refresh your memory here.

Listen. I love his answer. Not because I’m stoked to be nominated for another fuck buddy category (thanks for nothing, Exhibit A). I love it because it’s honest. I love it because I now have a boundary from where to operate.

Gemini: “Are you going to be okay with that?”

Me: “I’m okay with it insofar that you don’t get to call me out for not being talkative when you ask me how I’m doing. The depth of any relationship – friendship, romantic, professional – is dependent on both parties’ investments. If I’m getting your leftovers, then just expect to get mine.”

Gemini: “So, what now then?”

Me: “Probably just shoot me a ‘hey hey’ text next week. We can relive this.”

Gawd, my secret fantasy of being a standup comedian is within reach, is it not?

And, he laughed. Well, I’m assuming he did. Because the conversation proceeded as he expressed his fear of hurting, annoying, or frustrating me. I then explained that he was underestimating my self-awareness and decision-making power.

Because, hello, I hadn’t actually said yes to anything yet.

He also assumed that I was still going to operate from a framework that there could be something between us. He had made it very clear that there would not be. Therefore, I had the right to choose what I wanted to do with that. Whenever the time presented itself.

Me: “All I’m asking is that if (more than likely ‘when’ based on your verbiage) I completely disengage because of your low investment, you don’t get to call me out. That’s an earned right. For anyone in my life.”

Gemini: “Fair.”

Fair.

Holy mature adults, we did it.

And I’m not here to expand on the “friends with benefits” phenomenon because, if I’m being completely honest, I think it rarely works (hashtag, feelings). The moral of this story is that, maybe he liked me and just couldn’t commit based on the aforementioned epidemics of suffocation and paralysis, or maybe he already has enough relationships to pour into, or maybe he’s on his self-induced soul search, or maybe he just wasn’t into me.

The answer, in the grand scheme of things, is altogether irrelevant.

Because the only person I am responsible for is myself. And this responsibility calls me to a life of never settling (I expanded on this topic more here when I made the tough choice to leave Texas back in November). If I had silenced my voice with Gemini for the sake of acting fine – an ignorant effort to keep the peace – then I would have negated all the work I’ve done on myself to date. I would have compromised everything I believe about finding a partner.

I will never be too much for the right person.

And the antidote to The Commitment Crisis is that those of us who want commitment must openly articulate our expectations.

We aren’t looking for cute. We don’t want to be someone’s leftovers. We expect more than a man or woman’s last-minute.

That is not to say that we can’t explore a purely physical relationship with another person – when both of those people mutually agree on this decision for the simple sake of having access to satisfying sex – but I think it’s important to note that repeatedly choosing these contract-like partnerships only perpetuates what so many of us are viewing as a present problem.

I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for quite some time how much we all suck at dating, but if monogamy is important to us – in whatever capacity that looks like – then we must invest in finding the person with whom to suck just a little less. And we can’t settle for people who are swimming in their own uncertainty.

That means doing the work to heal old wounds. It means entering into the dating pool responsibly. When we are actually ready to do the next bout of work that involves interacting on a regular basis with another human (who possesses his or her own independent set of scars). It means speaking our truths to one another so that those people can be in choice around whether or not they want to stay invested in us (and in what way).

Because, I promise you, we can handle the truth.