Dear Boy,
Look, I get it. We’ve all had bad break ups and I’m sure yours was the worst ever but please, throw me a bone here. It’s not like we’ve been hooking up for years, but it’s been a few months and I get that you’re not in “a relationship place” right now but I need a little more effort on your part if you want this to continue.
I was never a relationship girl; I wouldn’t even call myself one right now, but lately I’ve been feeling like it’s not really my own choice to be so attached to being unattached. Since we started hooking up (every weekend), my views on monogamy (read: fear of commitment) have been tested. I used to fear waking up in the bed of the same person twice, let alone ten times. That number is a rough estimate by the way—I’m not counting. I swear. Since you and I started this weird in-between-not-dating-not-talking-but-hooking-up quasi-relationship, I’ve realized that maybe my insistence on being single has more to do with the fact that men can’t commit to me than my hesitancy to commit to them.
Over the course of their twenty-odd years, I’m sure most girls have accepted the sketchy excuses boys give them for refusing to move past the FWB stage of a relationship. These excuses are usually encouraged by the ever awkward “what are we?” talk; it’s a conversation that has to happen at some point when you’ve been hooking up with the same person for an extended period of time. In my experience, it usually ends with both parties suggesting that things (read: sex) halt before it gets too serious. I’m usually the one offering sketchy excuses. He’s usually the one choosing not to call me out on my BS and letting the whole thing disintegrate.
Since you, though, I’ve found myself wondering more and more frequently why do things have to stop before they get serious? What does serious even mean? Serious. Serious. Serious. It’s like one of those words that lose all meaning when it’s repeated over and over. At the core, I don’t think the word “serious” is something that needs to be feared. Of course we can’t ignore the fact that college is supposed to be a time for freedom and experimentation and whatever, but why can’t some of that experimentation include a lunch date here or there with the person whose bed you’ve been sharing for thirteen Friday nights (again, I’m not counting. This is a rough estimate.)? When did the hook-up culture paralyze our ability to socialize like normal human beings? These are questions without answers, bien sûr, but since you, I’ve started looking for satisfactory responses anyway. For me, a lunch date qualifies as serious. And I want a lunch date.
It may be that we aren’t in that tenuous “relationship place” because of your bad breakup or my inability to access my own emotions. It may be that you see this as a casual fling while I’m stuck being the stereotypical girl who develops unrequited feelings for the man with whom hookups are far from “casual.” Our hookups are no longer random or spur-of-the-moment. They are regular, consistent, and enjoyable.
I’m asking you to commit. I’m not asking for an engagement ring or an invitation to your niece’s baptism. When I say commitment, I mean I want you to acknowledge the fact that whatever this, whatever you and I have stumbled into over these past months, is a real, viable, existing thing. I want you to invite me to go on a real date with you. I want to be seen in public together and I don’t want you to think that that implies we have reached some weird place where monogamy becomes boring and I’m a nag and you’re uninspired and neither one of us has anything left to say to the other.
I’m asking you to commit, even though you might say that’s just not what college boys do. You might say that you aren’t ready, that it’s too soon, or that you’re still hurting and you don’t want to make me the collateral damage in your journey to self-awareness. In response, I’ll remind you that you aren’t a philosophy major and therefore have no grounds to make weird hippie statements like that and then I’ll walk away.
I’ve never been a relationship girl because I am strong enough to be on my own. If you can’t give me your simple, genuine word on this one, then peace out mo’ effa. I know I’m worth more than your games and your immaturity, and I’m willing to find someone who is on the same page as me. I get it, making a commitment to someone is hard; I also get, though, that it’s not impossible. I used to think I was the one who didn’t want to make a big deal of a fling, but things are different with you, and I think that must mean something.
See you on the flipside, or on Orkney, whichever comes first,
BC Girl
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