Until commitment-phobia does us part...

This summer my parents will be celebrating their 36^th wedding anniversary. With them my brother will be celebrating his 11^th wedding anniversary and the birth of his first child. All of this terrifies me! Don’t get me wrong, I am super excited to be an aunt. But I think being around people that are so willing to commit is what makes me so terrified of commitment.

I cannot imagine being with someone for any extended period of time. My longest relationship is two and a half years. And sure, that is a respectable amount of time to be in a relationship, but there were a couple break-ups during that time. The thought of being with one person and one person only for the rest of my life, honestly, feels like death.

I always hear that I will not feel that way when I meet “the one”, but really I think meeting “the one” will only make it worse. Half of all people, in this country, that get married think they have met “the one”, then two years later they are divorced. I cannot imagine failing at something that I look at as so important. Nor can I imagine spending that much money on something temporary.

Being the first person in my family to get divorced and proving to my parents and brothers that I am a failure is possibly more than I could take. This type of failure is not like failing a class, getting fired from a job, starting a business and going under, not completing a 200+ mile bike ride that my brothers signed me up for against my will, this failure seems so much bigger. This is huge personal failure to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not judging other peoples divorce. Sometimes two people grow apart and no amount of therapy, talking, romantic vacations, or anything else can bring those two people back together. And sometimes there are outside influences. And sometimes one person is abusive or unfaithful or whatever. I do not know. But, my goal is not to say anyone divorcing is a failure at life, I am simply saying that I would view my divorce as my biggest failure.

This is something I feel so strongly about, that I would honestly rather not get married. I would rather not try. 

If you don't want my peaches, better not shake my tree

Write what you know. That is what I hear I am supposed to do. For most people, I am sure this works great. But, I find that writing what I know gets me in trouble. Apparently as adults we are held responsible for the lessons our peers missed out on in their formative years. However, part of it is probably my fault. There are two types of people in the world. Some people expect everyone to behave in a PC and friendly manner while in public, go out of the way not to offend anyone, never touch on sensitive topics, keep conversations light and about things like the weather, but not too much about the weather as to insinuate an opinion on global climate change. Others, myself in particular, expect there to be discourse while in public. 

I find people asking questions they are not prepared to hear the answer to, because apparently they expect a nice answer, even if it is a lie. Then, of course, I am the asshole that insults someone’s mother’s cooking or calls their sister fat, or says their boyfriend is a deadbeat. And I do not understand this. I am not the bad guy because I gave an unfavorable answer to a question. Sure, I could follow my mother’s advice and simply not say anything at all when I do not have anything nice to say, but I think that mentality is what leads to this hypersensitivity of my peers. If they want an honest answer, they should understand that it may not be a favorable one. 

Then there are the people that will gladly post their opinions in online forums or hold up signs in the streets or shout them from their microphone. Doing this, in my opinion, is allowing people to challenge your beliefs. And the best part of living in the time we do is the Internet is everywhere. Literally, the Internet in the air you breathe. It.is.everywhere. Therefore, people should not be allowed to get away with the gross misinformation that they pass around as fact. No one would allow a person to walk around telling kids the Earth is flat! So, why not stop people from spouting their BS about school violence happening because of violent video games? Or Social Security being deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court? Or Organic not being any healthier than GMO? I have the Internet, and as an avid user of the Internet I can quickly, and easily, look these things up and show people that their beliefs are not based in fact. And if they are voicing these opinions in any type of public forum, I think someone probably should step up and correct them. So, I am that guy.


Writing what I know and what I observe will never win me any friends. It will probably cost me a few.


Being well liked has never been one of my goals.