"Yeah, you need to dump him."
This has been my advice to a healthy handful of my close girlfriends within the past couple of weeks as they've opened up to me about the struggles they're facing with their boyfriend hesitant on moving forward within the relationship. It's not that I'm insensitive, jaded and want everyone to be alone. Rather it's that I'm seeing the same socio-behavioral pattern within my generations' dating life and I've simply just found the solution - "Dump him." What I've been seeing within the last ten years of dating is that guys are accepting of relationships but after a year or two of dating they panic when it comes time to actually take the relationship seriously. What I've observed is that it takes women about a year or two to confidently know if they want to marry their boyfriend. I've observed that it takes men at least twice as long for this realization to hit and I'm wondering why.
Why are men scared of actual commitment?
In my mid twenties, I started observing men typically being more afraid of commitment than women. Back then, I was more forgiving of this as I knew mid-twenties is a young age to get married and settle roots. So this phenomenon didn't phase me as much also I wasn't ready to settle roots either. But now that my friends and I are in our early thirties and I'm still witnessing this fear of commitment happen amongst men, I need to ask a few questions on behalf of my generation.
Why have you emasculated our men, America? Why have you stunted their emotional growth so badly? Why are men not allowed to cry and why has fear been implemented within [quote unquote] settling down?
Men aren't sole providers anymore. Meaning that men don't need to take care of a wife and family financially like they did circa 1800s. Since women are, very slowly, gaining more rights they are now capable of financially taking care of themselves. Perhaps this is contributing to the phenomenon of men not needing to take relationships seriously? Yeah... Hmmm.... not entirely.
We all know this - humans like to have sex. We're all biologically assembled to desire it. I think an interesting progression within our society is that it's more widely understood that women like having sex for the sake of having sex just like men. Shocker - women are humans too. Wow, what a revelation! Combine this with the influx of dating apps making people easily accessible at all times from any where in the world - this is a huge reason why men are hesitating on taking their relationship seriously. If all they're after is sex, why would they limit themselves? But my question still isn't answered... why would men in my generation only be after sex?
Another fun revelation - men are humans too. Meaning they have emotions that need to be expressed and they too desire to be loved and to love. Society confuses men with convoluted information contrary to these facts. Society tells men that they need to have as many sexual partners as possible before being 'tied down' to one woman. Society also tells men that showing emotion equates to weakness and weakness for a man is poison. When a man is struggling between their innate urge to emotionally mature and the misguided information from society, I refer to this as 'The Flail.' The flail is when a man wants to have a serious relationship but he has been heavily manipulated by American society. The flail comes from the man innately wanting emotional growth but feeling scared because they've been told by society that emotional growth is bad.
This isn't about biology this is about societal conditioning. Our patriarchal American society has taught men to avoid emotion and avoid commitment. The idolization of fraternities in America has poorly shaped and stunted the growth of our men. American music, movies and entertainment has taught men to only aspire for sex and nothing else. Entertainment has taught men to be tough and to avoid showing emotion if they want to be taken seriously. This, ironically, is the most emasculating thing society has done to our men.
Expressionless and void of meaningful love.... now I'm starting to understand why men at my age are flailing.
There's so much to be said on this topic and I'm sure I could turn this into a very heated debate if sitting at a dinner table with a mix of people (man I would love that!) but, for now, I can only conclude. To all of my girlfriends who are finding themselves in this situation with a man that they've been dating - I say this:
Don't be afraid to say goodbye to your boyfriend if he isn't ready to commit. Don't waste your life living it for someone else. Don't wait for someone else's life to happen. Focus on making your own life happen first and I promise everything and everyone will fall into place as it should.
Remember too that it's not the idea of needing marriage it's strictly about the idea of being loved. If a man can't commit to a serious relationship then he isn't emotionally mature enough to be taking your dedicated heart and I promise you it's not a mistake to move on from the relationship. I've met many men in my past who have suffered from 'the flail' and I can't say it enough how thankful I am I didn't waste my precious time in waiting for them to catch up with me and my emotional maturity. There are so many men out there in our society and in this world that have not allowed themselves to succumb to societies poor teachings. They are the men that deserve our undivided attention and loving heart. Those are the men we want to be with and invest our time, they are the true men of our society. So.. one more time.. if he's a flailer... you need to dump him.