Recently, I wrote a song with the lyric “lovers until the summer kills us,” and since then, summer has ended, along with the relationships of three of my closest friends. Oops. But here’s the thing: two of those guys seemed to give up on the relationship because they had too much going on in their lives.
If a boat were sinking, you wouldn’t throw the only other person on it overboard, right? You’d both work together, getting rid of everything else. So why do some guys think removing a vital part of their support system will save them from the turmoil of life?
It’s been known that our best friends are our soulmates, and as I’ve been dissecting these relationships with mine, I have noticed a few things. First, these women are incredible. I mean, smart, beautiful, and so emotionally intelligent. Their exes, on the other hand, seemed to be struggling with life for the first time: having to take on more familial responsibility, balance work and relationships, and coexist with stress.
Is this a gender inequality thing? I’m not entirely sure, but as a woman, I feel inclined to say we face more challenges as young girls that shape our EQ than the boys do. We are meant to be more responsible and mature from the get-go, getting moved away from our friends in primary school to sit in between the trouble-making boys just so the class can proceed uninterrupted. We are put up against beauty standards so fast, and before we know it, the girls are put against other girls. This competitive environment in addition to expectations of sensibility are a lot for a little girl to handle. It seems the boys grow up with less of this pressure, resulting with people like the guys in question not knowing how to balance life, work, and love in their early 20s. My friends struggle to see their perspective, since all they see are solutions and compromises formed by their experiences.
All the people consoling my friends in their breakups have said the same thing: “they just need to grow up,” but I can’t help but wonder… do we have to date older guys? That just doesn’t seem like the best option. So if not that, are we meant to wait around for our exes to gain maturity? And if these guys aren’t capable of governing themselves, why are they in control of the relationship’s end?
It seems these guys are too stubborn to accept the wisdom of their girlfriends, who offer solutions to their problems. For some reason, they claim they must do it alone, without realizing their autonomy is impacting someone else; therefore, they assume control of the fate of the relationship. I wonder if this is a common cause of relationship deaths for women in their 20s, or if these three friends are coincidentally going through similar experiences.
Two of my friends had thought about ending these relationships multiple times, but always looked for a better solution, one that was considerate of both people. The guys, on the other hand, were able to call it quits and walk away, leaving their girlfriends questioning why they were so easy to give up on. How come? Where these guys were stubborn about accepting help, were their girlfriends equally stubborn about giving up on the relationship? Or were these guys trying to spare their girlfriends from their immaturity?
I’ll get back to you when I’m 22 and have just had my heart ripped out… until then, good luck out there to my fellow romantics.