To Date or Not To Date?

That is the Question.

For the past year I have been the guy who shy's away from the committed relationship. I did not want to have to factor someone else into my life. I was having a hard enough time deciding what I was doing, let alone asking someone else for their opinion. However, I have recently come to the conclusion that I am open to commitment once again. After all, I shouldn't deprive someone the wonderful experience of dating me! Which brings us to now, I am currently at a precipice. I'm at the point of a relationship where I don't know whether I should push the guy I am dating to make it an official relationship. My question is 'Will this mess things up?' 

The fear that I think we both have, as we have discussed it, is that by committing to making our relationship something official we are also committing to trying to make our relationship work despite the fear of impending failure. I think the reason why a lot of relationships fail is simply that people are afraid of failing. The TV show You're the Worst described a relationship well when they said 
"Can't not being okay be okay. The vast majority of all human effort however great or minuscule ends in failue. So what are your options? Admit pre-defeat because the odds are you're right or you do it anyway. Maybe we're a success regardless of the outcome because we've tried. Maybe there's a beauty in the struggle against failure." - You're the Worst
I'm not someone who likes to be so pessimistic as to assume everything will fail, however, I do believe there is a beauty in the struggle. I do believe that relationships will go through tough times and I'm someone who will fight like hell for something I believe in almost to a fault. There is beauty in committing to a relationship and making things work, just don't become crazy clingy.

I don't actually fear I will become clingy, but I think the big fear for me is getting hurt or hurting someone else. I have been hurt badly before and I don't care to repeat it. I was destroyed by an ex, but that's a story for another day. I'd be lying to say it doesn't affect me today. It's funny because before the aforementioned destruction I was actually quite PRO-committment, but now I find I fear commitment as I don't want to get hurt. I am also afraid that I will become the monster I so fear and will end up breaking someone's heart. As cliche as it is though, I would rather end up getting my heart broken and giving it a chance, than not risk it at all.

I have come to what I think is a fairly adult realization though. I know that at this point in our dating progression both myself and the guy I am dating have stopped seeing other people. I'm not sure if he still has dating apps on his phone, however, he only ever had Tinder. I personally have deleted all the dating apps I have given up the title my friends gave me of the 'Grindr Kween'. Now I don't find this a huge deal, but I do find it to be a significant realization for myself. That realization is that I might not need to be in an official relationship because for me I know I am committed to trying this. So let's see where things go. 

The Kween is dead, long live the relationship!

via GIPHY

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My First Time -- Part Two

Image
After the events of the small-town gay bar my life went back to normal mediocracy. Nothing really happened I saw the guy I had kissed in my lecture a few times but never really said anything. I think a part of me was scared of the realization I was coming to. One day however, the guy we referred to as 'The Chest' came up to me in the hallway after lecture  wearing his signature extra-deep V and said "I'm not going home for Thanksgiving, do you want to do something this weekend?". I agreed probably too quickly and too enthusiastically and we exchanged phone numbers planning to meet that Saturday. I had never done anything like this, I was bouncing with excitement as I met my friends and told them I was going on my first "real" date. The another realization came over me, What if he thought we were going to have sex? I then got nervous. I didn't know what I was doing, I hadn't really done anything with anyone, and by the look of the bulge in his j
Read more

My First Time -- Part One

Image
Usually, click-bait titles bother me but when it's for my own personal gain I've decided I don't mind it. Looking at the title of this post you probably think I am going to tell you about losing my virginity. But that’s just the tip (pun intended) of what I’m going to talk about. What I am going to talk about in this post is my first kiss, first relationship, the first time I truly committed to something and I guess my first time. But let’s start with my first kiss.  As I’ve said before I was a bit of a late bloomer. After growing up in a strictly religious family I found myself at the age of 21 having never kissed a guy and in the middle of a bit of a quarter-life crisis. I didn’t know who I was, or who I wanted to be and after 3 years living away from my parents, I had moved back home to finish university. This was frustrating, to say the least. So I did the logical thing anyone would do, I lived out my rebellious youth at an older age. A little less rebellious c
Read more

Daddies, Twinks, and the Holy Ghosted!

Image
A great date just to get ghosted! Of all the dates I've had in the past month three really stand out to me. I call them the Daddy, the Twink, and the Holy Ghost. In my opinion, I would say that each of these dates actually went well. However, in the aftermath of these dates, you wouldn't think so.  Let's start with the Daddy. Now I'm a weird age at which both older men and younger men seem attractive to me. Maybe this isn't something specific to my age demographic but I have found that recently it's become very prominent in my dating circles.  So the first guy, let's call him Bruce, was in his late 30's. He was quite muscular and bearded; which I am definitely into. Bruce asked if I wanted to grab a drink with him. So we went to a local craft brewery and the drinks started to flow. I learned quite a bit about Bruce and we were getting along okay but there didn't really seem to be a strong connection between the two of us. I still enjoyed my
Read more