you are viewing archives from 2004

marry, marry, quite contrary

“You’re the Evel Knievel of relationships”
--A. to me, last night

I think the conversation started online, in one of the many communities I frequent. Someone posted about babies and boyfriends, and another person chimed in that one shouldn’t be having children with someone they’re not committed to.

I responded but they said they had a boyfriend. Doesn’t that imply commitment?

No, they retorted, I tend to take the term "boyfriend" to mean someone you're casually dating. No commitment or you'd use another term.

I remember my first boyfriend. M. M. was a drummer and my drum teacher. Tall, skinny, with electric green eyes and a gentle smile. He also had the curly brown hair that, if straightened, would qualify as a mullet. Hey, it was 1990 and I was in the Midwest. I did the best I could. We dated for three years, mostly while I was away at college.

Was there commitment? Sure. We didn’t cheat on each other. But he was looking over the horizon at babies and marriage and a house in the suburbs. I asked him one night do you really think we’ll get married? He responded as if it was the oddest question in the world. Sure, don’t you? I said nothing. I was looking at moving west and starting my Real Life. Occasionally I wonder if he got what he was looking for. I certainly hope so.

My next boyfriend was G. G. I met when I was smarting from a rejection from E. I had a mad crush on E., and we danced around the dating spectrum. We all worked at Earthlink Network. G. was in QA and E. was his boss. I went to visit them during my break one day, and E. was telling me about how he had just asked out a 19-year old in Tech Support. I could feel the fire of embarrassment creeping up over my ears and noticed E.’s underlings working furiously at their computers, trying not to be embarrassed for me. All except G., who asked me to come check out something on his computer. He saved me that day. Two weeks later, he was my boyfriend.

Was there commitment? Sure. We didn’t cheat on each other. But he wanted to get married, buy a house down the streets from his parents, and raise babies. It sounded good in theory, but in practice, I knew the dream wasn’t practical. We broke up after six months.

After G. was C. C. was My First Internet Boyfriend. We had met on match.com and suddenly we were together. We took trips and went places and I met his parents.

Was there commitment? Sure. We didn’t cheat on each other. C. talked about marriage and house and retirement plans and babies. The difference was that this time, I talked back. Except that C. changed his mind suddenly, and I was left alone holding a two-person dream.

It took me months to recover and I did: with L. I met L. on Usenet. He was snarky and sarcastic and sometimes disgusting. I was trying out my new personality. We clicked. Suddenly my boyfriend was halfway across the United States.

Was there commitment? Sure. We didn’t cheat on each other. L. said over the phone one day I’m gonna marry you and I loved the thought of it. But we both knew it wasn’t practical. L. and I broke up after nine months.

I casually dated but didn’t have another boyfriend until I met A. And I told myself, no commitment this time. I wanted boyfriend to mean that, just something casual. I didn’t want the boyfriend with the maybe-we’ll-get-married or the boyfriend with the suddenly-this-is-intense-and-serious-within-three weeks.

We dated for nearly six weeks when I asked him are you my boyfriend?

I guess so, he responded.

Was there commitment? Sure. We didn’t cheat on each other. But it ended there. We didn’t talk about the future. We simply took things day by day. We weren’t a unit, there wasn’t assumed compliance. Just because you saw one of us didn’t mean the other one would be toddling behind. We met each others’ friends but didn’t meld groups or lives. We left ourselves a Get Out of Jail Free card, or at least we did until six months into this newly relaxed state of relationships I blurted out the “L” word.

Things should have probably changed that night. But they didn’t. I told A. that the L word was just another state of mind. It didn’t mean a set of shackles on his wrists; it didn’t mean there was commitment. He believed me. Which is good, because I meant it. And I acted like it. Our separate-but-together dating life continued apace.

And then things changed.

I don’t know how, or when, or even why. The longer we put off commitment, the more we wanted to be together.

After a year, he blurted out the L word.

At sixteen months, we discussed living together.

At eighteen months, he bought a house and I moved in.

My father asked me, does this mean you’ll be getting married?

I responded probably not.

But you might want to marry him?

I love him, dad. That’s got to be enough.

A. is the only boyfriend I've ever had who hasn’t brought up the idea of us getting married.

I wonder if that’s the part that attracts me so much.

This one is using his head. This one doesn’t dole out his feelings to the highest bidder. This one knows that there’s stuff under the façade and is waiting to see what pops out.

The first night of our Great Shacking-Up Experiment, we sat outside at our long, wooden deck table, nibbled on smoked salmon salads and toasted with flutes of champagne and I said to him wouldn’t it be funny if I became a total harpy?

He laughed. We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.

Nearly two and a half years later, A. is still my boyfriend.

Not my husband, not my fiancé, not my life partner, not my significant other.

He’s my boyfriend.

I love him more than any man I’ve ever known. We still go on dates. We’re still giddy and happy and hold hands like it’s all still new. We still surprise each other with love notes and flowers and silliness.

But he’s still my boyfriend.

I don’t want him to be with me because he’s committed to me. Yes, every relationship goes through tough times, but if commitment is the only delicate string that’s keeping us together, then I want to slice through it and spin off into the universe. I do hope we’ll be together for a long, long time. I hope that I’ll be seventy years old, wearing a turban and lazing by the pool, taking about my boyfriend to my great-nieces and great-nephews while A. winks at me slyly from behind his book. I want him to look at me and think I'm here 'cause I want to be. I am here because she is the most wonderful thing in the Universe.

So in my case, the woman was right. For me, boyfriend means there’s no commitment in place.

We’re committed to each other rather than a commitment itself.

We’re out on the tightrope, working without a net.

“You’re the Evel Knievel of relationships”
--A. to me, last night

I am. And I’ll jump a tank full of sharks for him to prove it.