So, today my girlfriend and I spent the afternoon with some close friends of ours, a married couple with a child on the way, and as the day progressed, I found myself becoming more and more depressed. I’m an admitted commitment-phobe. I think people are under the impression that one’s fear of commitment is due to selfishness or an unwillingness to change. The assumption places the control of committing or not committing in the hands of the person who can not make that ultimate move. But a phobia, in my opinion, though curable, is uncontrollable. You can’t wake up one day and say I refuse to be afraid of spiders anymore! It just doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, the wife of the couple brought out their wedding pictures and that pretty much sunk me. The pictures looked so good and everyone in them looked so happy. I can’t deny that I want that. At least, I think I want that. The idea of actually doing it cripples me. My problem is I want certainty. I want someone to promise me that I will not be mired in misery a few years down the road. I want someone to tell me that I won’t wish my spouse dead in a few years. I want someone to promise me that I will have a lover and a best friend and not a roommate. Is that too much to ask for? And even if I were promised all of these things, would it bring me any closer to committing?

I’m 34 and I feel like the clock is ticking. I don’t want to be some old dude marrying a 20-something young vixen. I don’t want to be Cary Grant, do I? I mean, I like Cary Grant but he didn’t have his first kid until he was sixty-two. There’s a scene in When Harry Met Sally… where Sally says to Harry, “Charlie Chaplin had kids when he was 73.” And Harry responds, “Yeah, but he was too old to pick them up.” Funny but true. I want to be the one diapering and feeding my kids — not vice-versa.

I read this article on AskMen.com that explains why men are afraid of commitment. While I feel some of the writer’s claims are true, it also seems that he may be quite a bitter man. I too have been burned by women, but my vitriol is not quite as caustic and my hopes for something substantial in regards to committing aren’t completely dashed due to some slattern ruining my life. At the same time, I could relate to some of the things he said. I think the Wikipedia description of fear of commitment fits me best. To be honest, I never really thought about it much before because I was young and time was on my side. But as time begins to turn on me, I find this fear and the anxiety caused by it less entertaining and more and more dispiriting.