As promised, this week we’ll cover the followup to the mess that is dating for our generation. We covered the issue of how we’ve got soooo much more baggage than previous generations did at our age last week, so if you haven’t read that yet, go do that first.
So. Baggage is a result of emotional pain, we know this. And getting hurt sucks. How do you avoid getting hurt? You don’t give people the power to hurt you. How? You don’t let them in anymore. You can get along and all that, but you won’t open up to them. You won’t show your vulnerabilities or let them know about your insecurities. You don’t want them to know how you feel about them. Stuff like this can happen even when on the surface it doesn’t look like it is. Chances are that as soon as things get a little difficult in your interaction, your first instinct will be to run far and run fast. And there you have it. Commitment, or even falling in love means giving someone a certain power over you. The power to hurt you. And a lot of people aren’t willing to give that kind of power away. We see it all around us, all the time.
The girl who refuses to double text. The guy who waits an X number of days before contacting his date from a couple of nights ago. The couple that everybody considers to be together, but who refuse to label the relationship and insist they’re just “hanging out” because they don’t want to “label things”.
Most recently I had a friend who’s been going back and forth with this girl for damn near 2 years now. They’re really into each other and everything, but neither one of them will actually own up to their feelings. There’s always an excuse as to why they don’t want to, I’m sure they feel these are valid reasons. But in the meantime, they’re missing out. Either on each other, or on someone else/better who could come along, but will go unnoticed because they’re so focused on each other. It’s a lose-lose situation.
Another example is a friend whose father gave him advice to make sure he ends up with somebody who loves him more than he loves her. We hear these quotes a lot, and unfortunately, this has become common policy for a lot of people, men and women alike. Whoever cares less, holds the power. But is that really a way to live?
Fear of commitment is a thing of all ages. All of these examples just show that it has gotten a lot more subtle with time, as well as how our baggage and jadedness makes it more and more natural for us to behave this way. The real tough part is: how can you deal with this?
As with everything the first step is being aware of what’s going on. Whether you’re the one who shuts down or the other person is, it’s perfectly OK to call this type of behavior out. Yeah, it’s scary as hell to let someone know you’re into them, sure. You don’t wanna embarrass yourself, especially if you (secretly) really like this person. But you’d kinda wanna know what your odds are here, right? You know how I feel about “what-ifs“. So my advice? Go big or go home. Good luck.