How Come, Scaredy-Cat.
- Last weekend I found myself at a bar among four girls that are in the English department at NYU with me. It was a type of end of the year celebration to commemorate the fact that stretching our intellect hasn’t killed us yet, and because our other friends who are dudes in the department didn’t show up I was the lone male spokesman for the night. One of the girls asked me a question that has been ruminating in my mind ever since because at the time I could only give her a half-assed, nervously hesitant and reactionary answer that with more time like this could have been legitimately and thoughtfully answered. In a spark of drunkenly personal questions she ended up asking he if I want a girlfriend or not. It’s a question that has basically plagued me for my entire adult life, however brief that you take that to be. My immediate answer was a type of scaredy-cat “Yes of course why not” that was followed by a not so much awkward silence, but one that basically told the people I was with my current mindset all wrapped up in one shot off answer. This worried me though - why is the general sense of someone who wants a girlfriend or boyfriend a negative thing, as if striving for that feeling labels you with a derogatory naivete to those who seem like they have been there before and know better? I’m admittedly, and embarrassingly and not of my own accord, a rookie in these types of relationships, and maybe my quick answer is a product of just wanting a legitimate one in order to have an opinion because as of right now I’m not even really in the position to judge between good and bad relationships altogether. I feel as though in my case wanting a girlfriend to the extent that I do comes from the outlook that getting one will somehow bring me more happiness than I have in my present, unfortunately single situation. Is there anything wrong with that? I realize that the fallacy does lie in that being in a relationship doesn’t necessarily bring happiness, but even in that simple level of companionship I feel as though there is a one-up condition that betters being single by so much. It’s no longer “Me” it’s “Us”, and isn’t there always power in numbers? There is always the response that is a borderline cop-out that being single is more fun and free than being in a relationship, but shouldn’t being in a relationship make you feel free and inevitably be fun that such a response just comes from the spite felt once you’re single? Or what about the response that if it ends then the pain following it is much worse than the goodness felt during, but that is too relative a response to hold much persuasive weight I feel. So yes, I do want a girlfriend, and maybe I’m naive to think that I’ll be happier if I do have one. After all, I could see myself and anybody in my position just as easily bitching about having to have a girlfriend. It’s just that I want someone to give me the chance to.
1 year ago