By: Maggie Feldbloom
As the leaves start to change and the air gets brisker, it’s hard to contain the jealousy you feel when your cousins bring their significant others to the holiday dinners every year without fail. You just know the Hallmark movies would be so much better curled up with someone else and Halloween could be a little sweeter in a couple’s costume with someone other than your mom.
However, when the opportunity for a committed relationship finally comes along, it’s a fight-or-flight situation; and you might find yourself choosing the latter. On top of that, it’s difficult to figure out what’s causing this urge to run faster than you’ve ever been able to before.
Even though you know you’d love to be in a relationship, here are some of the reasons you may be feeling skittish:
1. It feels like being a part of a ‘couple’ is going to change your identity.
Let’s be honest – change is scary. It can feel like sitting down in a new hairdresser’s chair – the decision overall is probably wise because the damage on your split ends are driving you crazy anyway. So why do we sometimes end up in tears when we look in the mirror afterwards?
We may feel unrecognizable when we make any self-change, whether it’s external or internal. It’s totally normal to feel like you’re not a ‘couple-y’ person, even if you still find yourself wanting a hand to hold or a romantic picture to post.
It’s important to remember though, if your partner is respectful of your space and personal growth, you’re not losing any part of yourself. In fact, you don’t know how things are going to go at all, so why not pick up those scissors if the end result could enhance what you’ve got now?
2. You’re afraid it’s going to end badly.
You may have never really committed to something of this nature before. Your haircut? Those locks would grow back but entering a relationship of this nature could mean a heartbreak full of tears and old Taylor Swift albums.
You might feel the urge to push them out of your life before they can hurt you and duh – why wouldn’t you want to do that? But the truth is, unless you’ve got a crystal ball that’s worked pretty well in the past, you don’t really know what’s going to happen.
And if it gets Jane-Austen-novel-type-of-good, you’ll be so grateful you didn’t kick the relationship to the curb before you even gave it the chance to begin.
3. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Ask yourself, are you questioning all this because the opportunity in front of you is yours to turn down? The chase can be incredibly fun and it’s exhilarating to think about the will-we-won’t-we of it all.
So when they finally turn around and say they want you too, it can be a bit of a stupefying moment. Now that you’ve finished the first leg of the race, you’ve got to remember why you were running towards them so fast and enjoy where you are now.
4. You’re not ready to “settle down” yet.
Okay, so if you’ve decided to be exclusive. There might not be any more random hookups or getting up close and personal with someone at the club. That carefree attitude can definitely be so empowering as a girl in the world right now because we’ve all got a body and we can use it however and with whoever we want. Who’s going to steal a glance across the dance floor tonight? Will you share a spontaneous kiss with a stranger? It might feel like this kind of lifestyle is fading but you’re not getting married! You’re just dipping your toe into this new pool of commitment and you’ll figure out if it’s for you soon enough.
5. You’re used to feeling bad for yourself.
It’s easy to get caught up in romanticizing the heartbreak and sometimes, we create bad situations on purpose so that we can watch our favourite movies with ice cream and throw ourselves a pity party. Is it dramatic? Maybe a little but that doesn’t mean it’s not the best therapy money can buy.
There’s something about feeling bad for ourselves that we can’t resist. We want the relationship when we see it on screen but the real-life version is frightening. It could be that you’re used to your past relationships not going so great and the feeling of success is a rare one. Therefore, it feels like the only logical option is to stay in your safe little bubble all on your own where there’s no risk.
6. You’re genuinely not ready.
You just may not be at a place in your life where you can commit enough of your time and self to somebody else and that’s okay. It’s definitely hard to let someone into your life and nobody should be trying to jam in the wrong puzzle piece for the sake of filling an empty space. The puzzle will still be there for you to try to add to it later on – and that’s a promise.
7. They truly just aren’t good for you.
Not to go in circles because we’ve definitely established that it might take some time to figure out if they could potentially be for you – but if anything makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe in any way, it’s not just surface-level. When it’s not acceptable, you know your boundaries.
Just remember, your fairy-tale ending doesn’t come without a little bit of hesitation. After all, it’s a long way down peeking out of your princess tower and you might need a minute before deciding to throw your hair down.
Whatever decision you make, just make sure you’re not being guided by a faux fear, and roll the credits on your rom-com!