The Commitment Conundrum

I've wanted to blog about romantic relationships for a while, but I have this pesky issue with commitment... oh good, now I have an angle.  To start, this business about certain people having a "fear of commitment" is like saying that certain people have opposable thumbs.  This fear may manifest itself in different ways and degrees, but the closest synonym for "commitment" is "obligation," which implies a loss or lack of freedom, and that scares everyone.  In fact, nothing scares us more than losing our freedom - hopefully this isn't the only thing keeping us out of jail, but it is a contributing factor.  There are two kinds of obligations: externally imposed and self-imposed.  Externally imposed obligations are generally not associated with commitment phobia.  We don't avoid going to work because it directly affects our livelihood, and we (most of us, anyway) don't avoid paying taxes because doing so results in an even greater obligation.  Avoidance occurs when we have a choice and the consequences of this choice are unclear.  I am an individual and there is no law stating that I must find a mate or I'll end up in the big house.  If I choose to commit to a relationship with someone, that relationship is a self-imposed obligation.  Cue the fear music, maestro.

Before I delve more into amorous relationships, let's consider commitment phobias in friendships as a building block. We all have at least one friend who never wants to be tied down by a plan and who therefore never has one and rarely adheres to one.  In the context of a friendship, this tendency, while annoying, does not necessarily cause the foundation to crumble for a few reasons: 1. we probably have other, more Type A friends to hang out with; 2. having Type A friends necessitates having at least one Type B friend; and 3. thanks largely to facebook, friendship as a construct just ain't what she used to be.  When friendship can exist between two people who may or may not have met or will ever meet, the notion of obligation seems a bit ambitious. Our understanding of friendship as a context implies an understanding that commitment within this context does not require us to sacrifice much freedom.  Our commitment-phobic friends do not become our enemies because they do not threaten our freedom and because they allow us to be commitment-phobic as well.  And even if you are committed to noncommittal pals, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are the bigger person.  Being the bigger person means nothing in romantic relationships.

Pretty much everything else does mean something, though, and that's what makes commitment to love so damn scary.  Romantic love is too big and mysterious and important to be a context; it is two people, two worlds, thrown haphazardly into a single orbit, and commitment is the only force that keeps them on the same track (notice I didn't say it keeps them from colliding or from wanting to occasionally knock the other out of orbit).  Choosing to be in a committed relationship with someone means choosing commitment, not a relationship; otherwise, to quote Yeats, "the center will not hold."  If we do not obligate ourselves to our partners, we cannot trust that they have obligated themselves to us, and without that trust there can be no relationship.  My partner may be fully committed to me, but until I trust that he is, I cannot be committed to him.  I have only recently begun to grasp the reality that we cannot love others until and unless we love ourselves; similarly, we cannot trust others until and unless we trust ourselves.  Our conundrum, then, is not getting over our fear of commitment, but rather getting over our commitment to fear.  Freedom can become loneliness, which we do not think we fear until we experience it.  If we stop fearing loss of freedom, we will be set free.  I'm working on it.