The Battle

Funny I start this right after I get a text from my cousin with a picture of her newborn daughter (well, that was the case when I originally wrote this Wednesday)…

I recall saying once on a blog that I didn’t feel like I had split or multiple personalities, but that I felt like I was two completely different people sharing a physical form. If such a notion is accepted as correct (and there’s a lot of reason to assume that it is), then it would stand to reason that I’ve had my fair share of internal battles.

These battles have ranged from whether to go out on a particular night to whether I should hang on to a romantic situation to how I should treat someone who has wronged me…and probably all kinds of points in between. As the title suggests, I’m going through one right now.

On my dad’s side of the family, he and my mom are the only ones who aren’t grandparents. On my mom’s side, they are only joined by my uncle Joe. Every other aunt and uncle I have has at least one grandchild. I don’t know badly how my cousin Renee is catching it, but the voices I’m hearing (that aren’t in my head) are getting louder, and the refrain is getting more frequent.

Here’s the problem: as many of you know, I’ve pretty much sworn off dating/relationships/women/whatever. Done so for a while, don’t expect it to change anytime soon. I’ve been rather pointed in telling my parents - and everyone else whom the subject has come up with - my reasoning for deciding not to play the dating game…and it has nothing to do with anyone I’ve dated in the past.

It has everything to do with what I don’t want to experience in the future.

First, there’s the approach…which is hard enough (I’ve only done this once in my life, and while I was somewhat successful it’s really not something I look forward to and have been lucky enough to escape in the past). For more on the approach and the consternation it causes, click here (http://www.verysmartbrothas.com/why-the-approach-is-the-hardest-thing-any-adult-has-to-learn-how-to-do/).

Say the approach works - total crapshoot - and you get her number…no, wait: you get ‘a’ number. You don’t know if it’s the right one until you call and she answers. Then, there will be some point when you call and she doesn’t answer. You have to wait and see if (nevermind when) she calls you back.

So you move on past the phone phase. Great, it’s time to start going out. Be prepared to front at least 2-3 yards for the dates you have to go on before she decides whether she likes you enough to pursue a relationship. “It doesn’t take a lot of money to take a girl out”…stop lying. You can be creative and come up with the picnic in the park or the trip to the art gallery, but there’s going to have to be that one ‘good’ date when you…uh…how do they like to spin it: “show that you can be a good provider”.

All that goes well and you enter into a relationship with her. Is she cheating on you? Women do this much more than they care to admit. Is she really into you? Is she over her ex? Does she have any situations that she allows to impede your relationship progress? Those and a multitude of other questions - including a few related to her sanity - have to be asked before you take the biggest step of all: that of asking the famous four-word question.

Once you ask that question, you have to then consider a new set of questions - which honestly should be considered prior to this point, but definitely at this point. Will she be a good mother? How does she keep a house (no, I don’t mean domestic chores)? How does she get along with your family? How does her family treat you? Then there’s the one question that no one wants to consider, but everyone should: what happens if we get a divorce?

I’ve made no secret of the fact that my biggest concern about getting married is getting divorced and some random woman (she is now, since I don’t know who she would be - and she will be then because we won’t be married anymore) running off with half of what not necessarily what I’ll have accumulated by that point, but possibly half of what I’ve seen my parents work so hard for so many years for.

I admit to not knowing much about divorce law and whether this would even be applicable, but I do know a lot about probability and percentages: definitely enough to make this a serious concern. “Get a prenup”…if I even have to think about that, she’s not the one. If I can’t trust her enough to take advantage of that type of situation should it arise (and I admit, I’ve dated some women and know other women I’d trust in that area), then…nope.

Oh: and all this assumes that you actually have sufficient feelings for her to go through this entire process.

So why is there even a battle going on?

Well, even with all of the above being said…I love my parents. They’re the two people who’ve always had my back through everything I’ve experienced in life. We may disagree on some things, but at the end of the day I know there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for me. So if I’m willing to risk all that and go through everything I talked about, it stands to reason that it would be for them.

I just don’t know if I want to.

As much as they’d do for me, I would love to think that I’m equally willing to do anything for them. But that…I don’t know. Getting back out there and putting myself through potentially more pain than I’ve ever experienced before (and I’ve gone through some)…sigh.

They’re getting older, so there’s also a temporal issue here - which would be the case even if there were no parental consideration, so I guess that effect is negligible. I just don’t want to do it because I see so much futility and such a small chance of it working out the way we would all like.

Now, please don’t confuse any of this to the point that you think I’d find someone just to satisfy them. While that may be true on the basic level of finding ‘someone’, it certainly would have no bearing on who she is and how things materialize. They know this, as I’ve chosen people they haven’t liked before and ended up not being able to stand people they loved (even before those relationships ended).

“You have to live your own life: they’ll understand”…I know that. “You need to get off the bench and back into the game”…heard that too. I’ve probably heard most of the possible replies and comments (but feel free to leave them anyway).

I also wonder if I’m being selfish or self-preserving when it comes to not wanting to ‘get out there’. It does feel that way: denying my parents the joy of grandparenting because “I don’t want to”. It’s kind-of like they’re asking me to do something and I’m resisting with everything I have - and both parts are true to a certain extent. As much it’s my life and all, “I don’t want to” really isn’t good enough reasoning. It’s like “because I said so” or something. I want to say there’s more to it than that, but I can’t really say that there is.

Fact is I’d step in front of a bullet for my parents (whether they’d let me is another question). I’d do all the stuff that Bruno Mars says in the hook of Grenade. I’d pay that price for them without even thinking about it, and honestly I’d have serious reservations about anyone who would have to think about it. All that said, I don’t know if I’d be willing to do for the people I love most…the one thing that I want to do least.