The relationship-talk faced by all couples eventually. And before the official labeling ceremony, many guys try to squeeze in the maximum amount of women possible – a free-for-all dating period where everything’s allowed. “It’s okay, it’s not cheating. We haven’t had the talk, yet!”
My brother said that to many men the leap into exclusivity is akin to choosing their Fantasy Football Team. You make your selection and suddenly THE STEEL DOORS SLAM SHUT – it feels like it’s all happening so fast – that’s your quarterback, there’s no changing, you’re locked in now and you’ll just have to see how it plays out.
And women can be just as commitment shy. Since I was sixteen, whenever I’d get cornered into this conversation, I’d squirm and uncomfortably ask, “Can’t we keep seeing other people?” I’m fiercely loyal once I do take the plunge but I was always reluctant to take myself out of the game. Am I an illusive independent spirit or a commitment-phobe? Or deep down a dude.
And now at thirty – yeah, did you know I’m thirty?? Little known fact – wink – but once you’ve reached the afterlife of your twenties, a woman’s choices starts feeling epically more important. You don’t have an infinite amount of football seasons left. So, if you’re going to choose Tom Brady to head up your roster, you need to feel pretty confident he can take your team all the way. You evaluate his stats, his strengths, weaknesses and whether his butt looks cute in that uniform.
What? It shows his athleticism.
By the way, you know you’re dealing with a girl who doesn’t watch sports when she originally writes, “quarterbacker.” Yes, I’ll take a quarterbacker with cheese.
But sometimes when the right two people find each other, it doesn’t feel like a scary thing at all. You don’t know where it’s going but you’re in no matter what. You don’t want to date anyone else because it’d be time away from the person you really want to be with. And for even a commitment-shy girl like me, you realize the big official talk isn’t even necessary because you both already started being monogamous without saying anything at all…
And if everything goes wrong, you can always pick up a new quarterback mid-season off the waiver wire.
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01.18.2012
Hey quarterbacker, who helped you with that last line?
(Ah, so she let someone else use her pen for the last line, did she?) BTW, excellent article, ThirtySense, your corresponding sense of humor hurtles to the fore yet again. And I like your way of resolving the issue-you’re basically saying, “It’s a non-problem for two people who like each other enough.” A wise answer-but then, given the relationships you’ve been in, the guys you’ve flirted with, and the time you girls spend thinking about this stuff, shouldn’t we should expect some wisdom by thirty?!