Bill Cammack

“Fear of Commitment” is a valid term which is way too often misapplied, leading to yet another way that women confuse themselves when it comes to understanding what men are thinking.

Due to the fault of this chick who will remain nameless, I ended up watching some reality television show about housewives in NYC. :/ Now, before you start laughing and snapping, This is why I know more about women than you do… Because I study them.

Anyway…

So I’m watching this show, and this chick asks this guy, her “boyfriend”, to say whether or not he wants her to move in with him ON NATIONAL TELEVISION! He was eating at the time, so he couldn’t immediately respond, but he starts looking at her like “ARE YOU CRAZY? DIDN’T I TELL YOU NOT TO BRING THIS UP WITH THE CAMERAS AROUND? :O”. Priceless! So eventually, when he can speak, he says he wants to talk about it later. CLEARLY, this means “NOT WHEN THE CAMERAS ARE AROUND!”… So… of course… the chick asks him TWO MORE TIMES, gets shut down both times and next thing you know, due to the wonders of editing and time-lapse, she’s explaining to anyone who will listen about how she broke up with her “boyfriend”… the same guy that she claimed she wanted to have kids with within two years… tossed the entire relationship.

The ensuing commiseration and speculation between girlfriends is what got me thinking about “Fear of Commitment”. As I said, it’s a valid term, but it’s way too often applied to guys that are on a totally different wavelength. As an example, let’s look at Arachnophobia [fear of spiders... from Greek arachne (αράχνη), "spider" and phobia (φοβία), "fear"]. If someone sees a spider and steps on it, they could very well be accused of being arachnophobic. The fact of the matter may very well be that they’re not AFRAID of spiders at all…. They just don’t LIKE them and don’t want to be around them. “Phobia”, therefore, doesn’t apply to these people. It would be more accurate and useful to call them “Anti-Spider”. You know that they’re ‘against’ spiders, but you’re not making any judgements about the REASONS why.

Similarly, a lot of guys are accused of “Fear of Commitment”. I personally can’t count how many times those three words have been tossed at me in that exact order. I propose that we consider some additional concepts, such as “No Reason To Commit” and “You’ve Overvalued Yourself Relative To Other Women”.

“Fear of Commitment” assumes that Commitment is natural in the first place. I’ll get into the Alpha Male thing some other time, but basically, there are some guys that are in demand and have no reason AT ALL to select one female to Pair Bond with. These guys will exhibit the same symptoms as a guy who’s actually AFRAID of commitment. They won’t do it. They’re not afraid of anything… It’s just that you have an inflated concept of your worth in his eyes relative to other women.

This is why women have problems going from “best girlfriend” to girlfriend or fiancee or wife. They’re trying to elevate the status of their relationship past where their “boyfriend” actually sees it. In the case of the reality show (which, obviously was taped a long time ago, because I saw a rerun of an edited show, so for all I know, the chick and guy in question are married right now), the chick wanted to go from “girlfriend that sleeps at the dude’s house every single night but still has her own apartment” to “we’re living together”. This reminds me of what women pass down from generation to generation, which is “Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free?”. Ladies…. There is NO POSSIBLE BENEFIT to a guy for letting you move in with him if he already has 100% access to you as-is. None.

This is what y’all need to focus on if you’re trying to upgrade your relationship… What is the benefit TO HIM of changing the status from “chick he’s seeing” to “girlfriend”? From “girlfriend” to “fiancee”? From “fiancee to wife”? What’s the benefit TO HIM of having kids with you or moving in with you? Why do you need to think about that? Because that’s what HE’S thinking about and that’s what HE’S going to base his decisions on about whether your relationship progresses in a positive or negative direction. Just because YOU think HE’S the one doesn’t mean HE thinks YOU’RE the one. You need to think about that, sooner rather than later.

An additional problem for the chick in the show is that her “biological clock was ticking”, meaning she was getting to the age where she’s desperate to have kids if she’s going to have any at all. This, obviously, is HER problem. This is like when you’re in high school and you don’t start your homework until 11pm when you’re already getting tired. It’s like knowing you have a test coming up on Friday and then cramming on Thursday night. Just like neither of those situations is the teacher’s problem, her “biological clock” isn’t her boyfriend’s problem. According to what she told her girlfriends, when he wouldn’t say that he’d be ready in a year or two (if ever) to have kids with her, she broke off the relationship. Typical. Only problem is, she should have thought about that sooner rather than later, because now, if she doesn’t reinstate her relationship to him, she has to start all over from square one and meet a new guy, get to know him, get him to like her AND get him to agree to have kids with her all within the exact same two year time span. :/

I’ll refer to this as an impulse buy, because this is the stage where it’s easy to get desperate females at discount rates. You’d be surprised how low women’s standards become when they’re scrambling to achieve something. It’s kind of like how guys are, all the time.

Speaking of opposites, attractive women could be accused of the same thing. Isn’t it “Fear of Commitment” when a chick has a guy that will take her out and buy her steak for lunch… then turns around and goes out with a different guy who’s willing to buy her lobster for dinner? Hmmmmmmm

Why should she choose one guy over the other if they’re both spending money on her? What’s her incentive to stop seeing all of her other guys? Why should she not get the multiple compliments, gifts, trips and bootie calls?

So, similar to how women to go out on dates with guys without having any intention of upgrading their relationship, guys do the same thing. Messing around or hooking up isn’t a ticket to “girlfriend” isn’t a ticket to “fiancee” isn’t a ticket to “wife” isn’t a ticket to “having kids with you”. So, instead of claiming that a guy’s afraid to commit to you, your energies would be better spent figuring out if you’re the kind of woman that might inspire him to commit to in the first place.

DatingGenius