Afraid to Commit: Young Men Want to Wait on Marrage

I've never been a 'standard female', and the more I write and the more you read, I think that will become glaringly apparent.

In fact, in my most recent serious relationship which is moving from Primary status to some kind of nebulously-defined Secondary status, I've often felt as if the gender roles were reversed. Of course, being in a polyamorous relationship instead of a monogamous one is a big deviance from what most of society labels as 'normal' in itself, but adding in the gender role confusion that is probably quite 'normal' within my generation (X) just made my world more confusing when I'd try to compare it to what I perceived society was putting forth as "normal". I've known myself to be 'different' than others for many years, but these last five years have really hammered it home.

So, that being said, I found this article about fear of commitment in "young males" (and I snickered at the fact that young males are now 25-33 instead of 18-25 as they used to be) quite interesting and familiar in some ways, and frankly quite rewarding in others.

The rewarding part came from the fact that I'm a woman who is child-free by choice and therefore a few of the fears these guys mentioned wouldn't be a worry with me. I've got no children, want no children, and have no dependants of any other kind.

But of course, I'm not ultimately looking for "marriage", either. I'm not really interested in the ceremony nor the "standing up in front of the world to declare my love" thing. Love is a delicate, private thing that can strongly be affected by "the world", I would rather treat it with the respect and courtesy I believe enduring Love deserves.

Of course, there are pieces in this article that are strongly monogamistic (and therefore at times based on fantasy for the future, not reality) that inspire a wry smile... Reason #6 for Young Men being afraid to commit is one of those pieces. As a polyamorous person I've pondered the deeper meaning behind soulmates and personally have discovered that while there are not a thousand or even 20 people I connect with on a 'soulmate' level, there is DEFINITELY more than one. The longer I live, the more people I meet and talk to and get to know, the more I've realized that my soulmates come in many different shapes, sizes, and in both genders as well. In fact, it was this soulmate-like connection with three or four people at a time - some sexually charged and some not - that spawned my initial forage into researching and reading about multiple long-term relationships (MLTRs) and polyamory.

And of course there's the standard serial-monogamist view of relationships that are "in the mean time" to finding a soulmate... that a relationship (and even a co-habitating one!) "for now" is just fine to do while looking for that "permanent" "one". Even when I hadn't realized my polyamorous leanings yet, I knew I didn't want to be that type of a person - the one who drops one relationship to start another, the one who has "filler" relationships to help pass time. Thankfully, the whole concept of poly as it's mapped itself out in my brain allows me to NOT be that person while still receiving plenty of love, affection and support from those around me.

I do look forward to meeting one of these "young men" who have figured out and built their own lives and who have respect for the fact that I've got my own life too (and of course, that I will never bear children) but I do fear I'm going to have to push past the more desperate ones who look towards their relationships with other people to determine their complete worth (partial worth is fine, as we do exist in a society with other people and need to get along with some of them some of the time ;) ). I wonder how I'll be able to determine that... and how many times I'll get it wrong before I get it right.

Stay tuned, I guess ;)