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Women Who Use the "C" Word

(and the Men Who Love Them)

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by Jason Roth

The relationship is going fine. Food, fun, intellectual stimulation, the occasional toothless blowjob. You know, basically everything a healthy male wants in a relationship. Then the chick opens her mouth and out comes something disgusting. There it is: the "C" word. The word "commitment".

She had to go and blow it. Then she had to go and blow it.

It's such a cliche by now that the word may not be used explicitly. But somehow, possibly through subtle, nonverbal hints or cute whining which would induce thoughts of violence if it weren't for the cleavage facing your direction, the proposal for monogamy has just been communicated.

Three hours later, the woman is having cappuccino with her non-threatening gay friend and complaining about the particular way her boyfriend got up and ran out of the restaurant screaming. Was her boyfriend, the woman so desperately wants to know, trying to tell her something?

Ultimately, an agreement to "commit" is about limiting the sex. Well, ideally it's about limiting the sex with other people, but increasing the sex with each other. The point is, commitment is not about giving up your varsity jacket or getting a name tattooed on your ass. It's about the sex, and/or the active pursuit of it.

I can think of two reasons why a guy might be "afraid" to commit when a woman asks him to:

• A permanent ban on his promiscuity

• The transformation of his role from boyfriend to security blanket

Reason #1 means the relationship is still on the superficial side. The woman may have decided to kick it up a notch, but missed and accidentally made contact with the man's scrotum.

It seems to be generally accepted that women are not always ready to have sex when men are. Isn't it possible that men may not be ready to stop having sex when women are? These are two sides of the same sexual coin, as far as I'm concerned. (I picture one of those tokens they use at the peep shows.) For women, it's a sign of emotional closeness to have sex with a guy. For men, it's a sign of emotional closeness to stop having sex with everyone else.

If the relationship is ten years old and the guy is still worried about the lack of variety in his bedroom, then he probably shares some of the responsibility for the quality of relationship not elevating beyond the superficial. Therefore, it may be up to the woman to determine whether reason #1 is at play, and whether there's anything she can do to improve the relationship. (Unless, of course, she's perfectly happy with the relationship as it is.)

Reason #2 why men don't commit is what many women are afraid to acknowledge. It feels much more comfortable to attribute the man's resistance to an imaginary "fear". However, I don't think most men are afraid of commitment. What they're afraid of is being treated as a security blanket. Just like women, men want to be treated as objects of attraction. That's how they feel at the start of a relationship but not necessarily at the time a woman asks him to "commit".

A lot of men are completely willing to commit - until the moment a woman asks him to. The reason is because when she asks him to "formalize" the relationship, the man sees it as the act of flushing all the sexual energy down the toilet. The idea of being treated as a security blanket is repulsive to the man's sexual nature, unless of course he's already allowed the woman to rip his proverbial testicles off (or he's given them away after a string of failed relationships) and he's now ready to commit sexual suicide.

It's this "security blanket" aspect of a "serious" relationship that can result in the classic cliche of the sexless marriage. The two people are together for any reason other than because they are attracted to one another. One reason two people might want to "take it to the next level" in the first place is that they feel they've invested too much of their time to call it quits. At the exact moment when they really should be cutting their losses and ending it, they do the complete opposite: they commit to a lifetime of misery. (Or if not misery, at least romantic mediocrity.)

The time to commit to a long-term relationship is when both mutual attraction exists and sufficient knowledge of the "must-have" aspects of each other's character are clearly known. If sexual attraction has waned for either person, it's likely due to the knowledge that the their mate doesn't fit the bill. Rather than blanking-out the fact that the other person doesn't meet one's highest standards for a long-term relationship, one should be honest and say so. Otherwise, the words "I do" just become an escape hatch from the more honest, and more courageous, task of ending the relationship.

The guy who makes the ultimate commitment because he doesn't have the balls to face the truth about a failed relationship doesn't deserve any praise for being "willing to commit". He should be "afraid to commit" and run for his life.

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