Average college male afraid of commitment
October 7, 1997
Recently I was asked the question, Why can’t college guys
commit? This question was asked by a girl (just a friend), and I assumed she was referring to men’s inability to become active members in long-term, serious relationships.
Because I have been a guy for more than 21 years, I know why college men cannot commit. And I’m going to let out a few hints although it is officially against the rules.
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Primarily, the question isn’t Why can’t most college guys commit to relationships? but Why won’t they commit? There happens to be two main reasons why the average college guy (or males in general) usually is very hesitant to commit to a relationship. They are:No. 1 absolute terror and No. 2 unfounded arrogance.
What I mean by absolute terror is, basically, just that. Most guys honestly are afraid of women. Women are compelling creatures capable of performing acts of remarkable destruction and causing general emotional havoc at will. Because men generally fear what we do not understand, it makes sense that we fear women.
A lot of women complain that guys aren’t in touch with their feelings. This is inaccurate. We know exactly where those feelings are and they had better damn well stay put.
Most guys who truly are afraid of committing were in a serious relationship at one time. By the time men get into college, most likely we’ve already had that first, pseudo-real-love-crap relationship. Most likely, we were hurt by the experience. For an intelligent guy, that experience is it. A man has the ability to get his heart broken only once, and he won’t allow it to happen again. It’s not about not wanting to make others happy. It’s basically a survival mechanism.
Most guys enter a relationship with the attitudes:(A) I’m going to get hurt, (B) She’s going to get hurt, or (C) By some miracle we actually will both fall in love at the exact same time, our appreciation for each other grows simultaneously, and then we get married. In very few relationships does (C) happen. Even if it does, the current divorce rate doesn’t make marriage look that appealing. Most guys sincerely do want to get married eventually. But they only want to get married once, so they aren’t prone to rush into anything that even remotely looks like it might end up in divorce. It isn’t that we don’t respect the institution of marriage. In actuality, we respect it to such a degree that we don’t want to screw it up by entering into it with the wrong person.
Therefore, in most cases, you have either (A) or (B). Simple logic already has made this decision for you.
Now as to the reason of unfounded arrogance. Most guys have trouble committing because there is this little spot in the back of our head that feeds our ego. When we meet and date a woman, the little ego-booster always tells us You can do better.
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Most of the time, we really can’t do better.
A guy might be dating a remarkably attractive woman with an IQ of 130 who treats him like he’s a religious figurehead. The guy will think insane thoughts such as, Why does she sign her checks with red ink? It’s so unnerving every time she writes a check it’s like she’s grading it or something. Can I really spend the rest of my life with a woman who grades her checks? I’m going to have to find a woman who is willing to accept my blue-ink policy. I really thought we had something going, too . . .
And then there’s that whole biological, evolutionary spread my seed ideology. The one that basically says, I owe it to the future of humanity to sow my genes. This is how a guy will defend cheating. Of course, it’s very difficult to buy this evolution argument from a person who will search the entire neighborhood for a lost television remote before he even thinks about touching the TV set manually.
That about sums it up. There’s more to guys, but we have to keep some things under wraps.
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