I Lack the Commitment Gene
Geplaatst op 09-01-2025
Categorie: Lifestyle
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My mother thinks I’m a lesbian.
She’s danced around the question for years. “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” she asks. I’m not sure what to tell her. That I can’t commit? That nobody is interested in me? Mutual affection is a weird concept to me. I have never cared about a man who has felt the same way about me. The “mutual” feeling is such a foreign concept to me that I don’t miss it. I can’t miss it. How do you miss something you’ve never had?
I’ve developed feelings for close guy friends with whom I’ve had everything in common with–musical tastes, beer preferences, travel plans, lifestyle ideals–only to find that he likes me, but just not that way. “You’re cute, and I like you a lot…just not like THAT.” THAT! Capitalized, and with an exclamation mark flourish. It works the other way too. I met a dude dressed as Tom Cruise from Top Gun at a Halloween party. We hit it off, we went on a few dates, and I felt…nothing. No emotional connection, even though the physical attraction was there.
I’m not a “hard” woman. I like sappy commercials and love stories (except The Notebook, which I actually use as a critical judging point for all friendships). I hope that someday I might marry and have a baby or three. But it isn’t a big concern, and I’m not occupied by the notions that my life will be incomplete without these things, even if my friends are marrying off and copulating. I’d rather be alone than settle for something that isn’t really there.
On the other hand, it took a long time to feel okay with me. I constantly questioned why the “normal” notions of life weren’t working for me. Back when I was 15 years old and all my friends started dating, I’d think, “It’s okay, I still have a few years to get started.” I’m 25, and I’m still thinking about when I’ll get started.
My disappointments are piled like dirty dishes. I hate when someone says to me, after spilling their guts about their issues, “But you don’t understand. You’ve never been in a relationship.” That phrase is the single most insulting entity in the English language. If I don’t understand, then don’t tell me your fucking problems.
But I haven’t suffered heartbreak? I haven’t suffered letdown and disappointment and dashed dreams? At first I blamed myself for being attracted to the wrong men, and I do admit to having a certain affinity for the troublemakers. Like the soldier who I wrote letters to while he was in Afghanistan for a year and later said some particularly nasty things about me to a few of my friends. But even the ones I can have are somehow unattainable, and when you go through the same cycle enough times, the sting of rejection gets much less painful. What used to take me months to get over now takes a week or two.
There was the dude I met from a sketchy online dating site, who was perfect on paper but did not entice me in the slightest. I did not want to get naked with him. But one day we did, after several dates,
because I thought, “Hey, if we seal the deal, I might form some sort of attachment.” I didn’t. He threw up on me mid-coitus instead. (I asked him if I could blog about it, and he said yes. I just did.)
There was a navy guy with a Mustang who disappeared to the other side of the country. A roommate which, I can assure you, is never a good idea. Also, a guy I fell in love with during my second year of university who constantly invited me over for cuddles, and then slept with my best friend (I later found out he was gay).
Then there were two French boys (but not at the same time). One lived in France, treated me like a queen, and then fed me false stories about kangaroo farms. Another was a big-shot soccer coach in Montreal, with whom I shared a passionate elevator kiss with. When I was 18, I met a 28-year old divorcee who was obsessed with redheads.
There was a rock climber, a best friend, a colleague. A musician who told me he played with a local popular band, and for some reason I imagined him to have a British accent. Turns out both points were false. In high school, when I was 17 and naive and thought older boys were cool, I had a brief fling with
my trophy crush. You know the one: college kid, star athlete, Mr. Popularity. It took me a full year to
wrap my head around the fact that the opposite sex can be inexplicably cruel.
It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable with being alone, and to consider this “normal.” Whatever normal is. I’m a fairly attractive 25-year old free-spirit with brains and a large amount of friends and family. Is that a definition?
I remember last summer while navigating Cape Breton with Carlo, we stopped at a beach to dip our toes in the frigid water. We talked about relationships, and I confessed I had never been in one. “Why not?” He asked. “It just hasn’t happened,” I said.
It just hasn’t happened.