Scared of Commitment? Bullshit.

I'm willing to bet that we've all either received or given an excuse for walking away from something that has centred around commitment: ‘I'm not ready to commit’, ‘I'm scared of commitment’, ‘I need commitment’, ‘what’s even the point in commitment?’ And this isn't just with relationships. It’s with plans, jobs and even (as I know all too well) dissertation topics. At our age I think commitment is something we simultaneously crave and flee from. It’s a difficult relationship and it’s about time we acknowledged the truth of it: we’re all ‘scared’ of commitment, but we all secretly know that when we say this, we’re bullshitting.

Declaring yourself as scared of commitment is such a tired trope. Perhaps that’s why we meet this phrase with outrage rather than pity, with an eye roll rather than a hug. It’s become so common that rather than a genuine fear, it’s just a part of the character of our age group. It’s a fear we all have, same as being scared that we’ll never be able to afford to own our own house – but I can’t see people giving up on this pipe-dream because they’re afraid. You have to realise that having a fear of commitment does not make you special – you’re not a free spirit, or a damaged yet charming fixer-upper, and you are not a lone wolf. You’re like the rest of us trying desperately to figure out if commitment is a question or an answer.

I think to solve the commitment conundrum we have to ask ourselves what we’re actually scared of, because it’s not the commitment itself; it’s what might result from it. Unfortunately these realities do not make the inoffensive sounding excuses what we might hope for. I don’t want to commit because: I think you’ll trap me, there might be someone better, I suspect you’ll turn out to be a dick, I'm still into my ex – none of these are particularly comfortable things to acknowledge because they’re the things we are genuinely scared of.

Being scared of these things is okay, not wanting commitment is fine and wanting to be on your own is also completely understandable. But for the sake of everyone’s sanity, explain these things and the reasons why, rather than playing the get-out of-jail-free card of ‘commitment fear’. We’re all scared of things we associate with commitment. So rather than using it as an alienating shield maybe try and think of it as the opposite: something in common.