The road to commitment is long and winding. Several pitfalls and booby traps may just smash your efforts to commit. Sometimes the journey to commitment is too psychologically long and tiring that you just give up. To someone who spent her life opening windows at night (at the risk of burglary and privacy invasion) just to avoid the stifling feeling of enclosed walls, being in a committed relationship is like living hell. The mere mention of the C-word had me running outside for air.

So what makes a person who is so liberated and carefree give up her independence?

Love? Na-ah. I’ve learned long ago that love as we know it is a very relative thing, and very fleeting too. If there is one abstract idea that has driven the sanest people mad, it is love. It is nothing more than an illusion. Or, to the hopeless romantic, a word to justify every single pleasureable thing or emotion that comes. Among animals, males emit pheromones during mating. The females sense this and get hooked, until the mating season is over. I guess that’s “love” for them. Humans are not much different really. We interchange the idea of love, with the chemical effects of hormones.

I guess as we grow older, we get tired of running or fighting, or proving something to ourselves. There was a story that i heard or read somewhere, which exactly defines my view on commitment. It moved me so much that I started questioning my views on growing old as a single mom, and not relying on a partner at all.

In the tv series, Friends, Phoebe said something that really struck me. Her lobster theory.

When I told a friend of mine that I’m settling down, have a baby and a family, she asked “are you sure?”. What she’s really asking is if I will be able to sustain my free spirit inside a committed relationship. My friends are cynical about me totally committing to someone, they think I always have a plan B. Yes, of course I do have a plan B. Maybe I haven’t matured enough to embrace the idea behind the song about docking the boat and throwing away the oars forever. But I’m getting there… cautiously.

Years of inner struggle cannot be shrugged off easily. It’s just too easy to turn the other direction and just run, run and run from responsibility.

I finally, albeit warily, chose to commit to someone who has known me long enough to understand me. Do I love this guy? Yes, I do. But more importantly, do I trust him? He may be the only guy in the world that I trust, besides my dad and bro.

Why him? Frankly, it’s as simple as this: In a world where I’ve always regarded everyone as my bitch, I’m his bitch.

I’ve found my lobster.

The experience of having a young boyfriend is a bittersweet mixture of delight and apprehension. Particularly when both parties are still testing the waters. In the case of my friend and his girl, the guy feels that the girl is not ready to commit yet. The girl also maintains the “I-don’t-want-to-hurt-you” distance by insisting that they remain friends for the moment.

The statement “I might hurt you” could mean a few things. For starters, the girl knows that she has hang ups that the guy might not understand. Secondly, she is afraid for herself. The guy is just starting his own urban adventure — college, graduation, finding work — while the girl knows she’s already over the initial excitement of going through those things. The guy might discover other diversions (read: other girls), and when this happens, the older gal realizes that it’s emotionally safer to be his friend than his GF.

In a conversation with an over-eager young man, I remember putting it succinctly in one statement…

This is not the time for you to have someone who tends to be jealous of the new experiences that you’re going through. This is the time to be free, with no killjoy GF to destroy your fun. You need friends who will be going through the same thing.

Of course, I felt a certain sadness as I was saying it. Particularly since I really liked him and wanted to prolong the “trip” a litle longer. But I had to do it, for his sake… and mine. Yes, I would only be hurting him if I didn’t cut that involvement short. And might even open myself up to more complications than I can handle.

However, for those girls who are brave enough to take the risk, good for you sisters!!! At the end of his exciting day, you will be there to listen to his spellbound account of all the new stuff he did. Marvel at how freshly he views life, and how wonderful a man he will be. Be infected by his idealism and encourage his refusal to accept the cynical as truth.

The rewards of a successful May-December affair are lasting. A relationship that proves that age really doesn’t matter in love.

This is the first of two parts of my reply on the age-gap issue of a friend. He let me in on his affair with an older woman and I could not reply with a simple friendster message due to text constraints. This topic is relevant to the over-all theme of my blog, so here goes…

First up, we put the situation in perspective: the guy is 19 and the girl (woman) is in her mid-twenties. Not much of an age gap you say? Maybe. However, age-gap in context could also refer to the wide difference in experience… in their case, the guy is in college and is somewhat of a techie, while the girl is a professional working in a corporate setting. Girl recently broke up with her overbearing BF and has just started going out with friends. Guy meets girl through his classmate (the girl’s younger sister). They start dating. Sometimes the guy feels out of place when the girl is with her officemates, as he can’t really relate to what they’re talking about. He doesn’t mind coz he likes her. The girl says that she isn’t ready to commit. The guy waits.

What does love feel like?

I’m not going to judge the situation yet, but I am going to discuss the generalities of what makes a girl fall for a younger guy.

The Younger Guy

* … is not yet jaded. His ideas are fresh and naive. He hasn’t yet learned a lot to be overly judgemental. Relatively, he has been hurt less by relationships than you. He still wears his heart on his sleeve.
* … is sentimental and romantic. High school teaches us a certain type of boy-girl relationship. This is when we learn about monthsaries and flowers and chocolates… all the things that we consider “baduy” later on. The younger guy is much more closer to that stage in life than you are, hence he is more likely to follow the romantic dogma delineated by his peers.
* … is virile. No explanation necessary.

He looks at you like you’re the prettiest girl he has ever met. He listens to your opinions beautifully, as if all your ideas and “Me” stories are important stuff. His fits of jealousy are endearing and cute. The only thing that seems to really tick him off is when you remind him that he’s still somewhat of a kid. He doesn’t mind showing you affection and accepts yours graciously.