Are women to blame for the rise of the man-child? Or is society to lame for the rise of the twenty-something-child? Kay Hymowitz has written a book entitled, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys. I’m afraid the rise of women has also turned women into boys, or to put it another way – we have lost our sense of gender. Good. Women have had a pretty shit place in society for the last few centuries, and bar some childless heroines of the past, our roles have mainly been defined by our roles as mothers. The Times did an expose on Hymowitz’s book, and Andy Jones wrote his reply entitled, ‘Does adulthood really have to mean a wife, kids and a steady job?’ Hell, I don’t want to be a wife and have kids any time soon either, Andy, and I think what is really lacking from most of the criticism on male behaviour in society in the last few decades, is that it isn’t exclusively men taking longer to want to settle down.
As much as I moan about relationship problems, the biggest problem I actually have with being in a relationship is that I’m terrified that I am going to miss out on opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise consider unless I was single. Being single means that you can up and move wherever you wish, whenever you wish (given you have the funds), I can travel when I want, spend time with whomever whenever I want, and so forth. I’ve found myself quite depressed when left to my devices to think about this predicament I’m in, being that, though I may be madly in love with someone, it can make me feel as claustrophobic as it can happy. Don’t get me wrong, I want to think of Dale in my future and he is one of the few people I’ve actually thought worth considering when I make plans later than April, but sometimes I want to not want that. Being alone and making decisions from a purely selfish and self-motivated place has gotten me extremely far in life, and I’ve never let anyone get in my way. Now I have a big, lovely blockade in my way that I just want to kiss and love all the time, but is it to the detriment of my self-determination and drive? If I’m only driven by the idea of kissing someone goodnight at the end of the day, what happens to my career? I’ve been presented with opportunities for making a career out of my writing, which is to say I could sit around and complain about relationships and comment on articles in the Times all day, but at what cost? Mentally, I’m not too sure it’s in my best interest to brood over things for a living, I do that enough already. This is a cathartic exercise in creative writing, but the risks in exchanging money for my ideas is too great. Talk about wanting to throw myself in front of a bus – the idea of being identified is so terrifying that I meticulously go through details of each post, making sure all of them are slightly skewed as to not tip anyone off that it could be me. I like my life and sometimes I like to tell the world how mental I think I am so I can get verification that I’m not alone, that other people out there are struggling just as much as I am.
Though I hate to fight, I can honestly say that the one good thing that has come of it is to show everyone that, no matter how great a love is, no one has a fairy tale relationship. People fight, people make up and, though hopefully not in my case, people break up. If there’s anything I can be sure of though, is that I have an incredible group of friends, and ex-boyfriends, who would step in front of a bus before they’d let me throw myself in front of it.
The thought of breaking up with someone you love is always horrible, but I can think back to those I’ve loved before and be more than confident that love would come my way again. I’m not saying I want it to, but Dale and I proving to be man-children is an entirely likely scenario.
I’m going to focus on the positives and recall some of the best moments with exes:
- Pub Boy use to put on ‘She’s A Bad Mama Jama’ before we’d go out and sing it to me whilst dancing around his room.
- The Ex use to love to tell me the story about the first time he saw me, as if telling it to a stranger. ‘You walked in and I knew I was in trouble. The first thing I noticed was your hair and your eyes. I watched you as you were talking to some guys and when you started laughing I fell in love with you.’
- Grey, after hearing my insecurities about Lily, saying, ‘There is no way your insecurities are valid. You’re selling yourself extremely short.’ The closest thing that man will ever come to saying that he thinks that I’m beautiful.
- Dale, halfway through our date on Valentines Day saying, ‘Can I tell you something? I really hate Valentines Day.’ And me saying, ‘Me too! It’s so commercial.’ To which he replied, ‘I know! I would do this with you every day and was really worried you would think I was only taking you out because it’s Valentines Day!’ Then proceeding to have the best Valentines Day I’ve ever had.
Admittedly, it’s hard to beat number two, but our love has thus far been the most mutual. But if you think I’m mental, my oh my, that man is something on an entirely different level. That’s neither here nor there though. Dale and I have had many more moments, but when they’re fresh in your mind they’re easier to recall. I remember never thinking I could love anyone like I love The Ex, and now I avoid calling him because our conversations inevitably end with ‘I love you’ and that’s not fair if I’m dating, in love even, with someone else. To anyone. I use to throw myself into love head-first, but to retrospectively look at those loves as heartache is an error I believe, and I need to remind myself that despite how much it may hurt in the end, there’s no way to know when and if love will end. Just because I’ve broken up with some people doesn’t mean I won’t always love them and care for them. What terrifies me at the moment is that the kind of emotion I felt when after fifteen months with The Ex we broke up is identical to what I felt after a fight when I haven’t even been with Dale for a term! Regardless, I can’t go into this relationship with every ex-boyfriend sitting on my shoulder, reminding me how shitty boys can be sometimes. I can only remember how great Dale has typically been and accept that I’ve thrown myself into the deep end.
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This was written a few days ago. I’ve since been dumped and am now drowning in the deep end.
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