by Jesse Card

Created on: January 03, 2010

Commitment: what a taboo word in our contemporary hit-and-run dating style.  We hear it every day.  Jane wonders why John IV won’t take the step to moving in with her.  Meanwhile, John III is wondering why Jane II has gone off the deep end like Jane did about his lack of desire to meet her parents.  Every day in every way we hear of situations like these; and ladies it’s not always the guys who fail the commitment test!  But my question is this: what is it that we are really scared of?

Now let me borrow my old friend Geddy Lee’s voice and say, “If you commit to not committing you still have made a commitment!”  Okay, so I don’t quite have the correct number of syllables, or maybe I’m just not Canadian enough to pull it off, but you get my point, right?  Taking the “next step,” whatever that leap may be, is really not such a hard thing to do, but for some reason we always get in our own way.  Somehow we make excuses, and excuses for the excuses, and so on. 

So let’s cut the crap.  We have already committed to something, every day we do it.  So what we have to face in ourselves is simply a choice.  Go ahead, ask yourself, “to what am I going to commit myself today?”  It isn’t a matter of avoiding commitment; it is just a matter of taking control of the commitments you already make and directing them to achieve the goals you have. 

Do yourself and your partner a favor, though, and communicate those goals.  It’s absolutely pointless to operate on assumptions that the other person has the same goal you do; that is almost never the case.  Communication is the root of all success in a relationship; it adds clarity and prevents misunderstandings.

So John, go ahead and commit as you have been, but let Jane know what it is you are committing and why.  And Jane, instead of spending days fuming at John, let him know what it is you expect of him so the two of you can seriously figure out where you’re going with this thing.  It might just be that you both will have to commit to finding someone else, but at least you’ve not wasted time and emotion, and, as an added bonus, you’ve narrowed the playing field!  But, on the other hand, perhaps you just might realize that the commitments you each seek are going to work for each other.

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