TOM JONES CHECKS OUT
The commitment thing is having an impact on two of my friends. Donal is 40 and was always described as a confirmed bachelor. That’s not confirmed bachelor as in a euphemism for gay but doesn’t want his parents to know - he enjoyed collecting girlfriends but never wanted to limit himself to one.‘Just wait, he’ll come a cropper,’ the coven used to predict.
Well, we used to hope anyway, watching taxi after taxi ferry weeping women away from his house. Our patience was rewarded. For now Donal has met the one. It took him a while to identify her: he had an inner tussle, panicked about all the foxy ladies he’d miss out on, then decided this is as good as it gets. Besides, he was losing his hair. So he asked Anna to marry him. She declined. Donal is in a state of profound shock. It had never occurred to him in his twenty odd years of playing the field that when he met the one, she’d have doubts. Only he was allowed to have them.
To add insult to injury, Anna is keen to continue dating him - she just doesn’t want to commit herself. Donal doesn’t know if they can continue on what he regards as a diminished footing.
Meanwhile Emma, 32, is also in the doldrums. She’s spent four years with a man she regards as her soul-mate, he even moved from Paris to Dublin to be with her, but when she suggested buying an apartment together he refused. He’s not ready to take the relationship to another level. ‘It’s not as if I’m demanding a wedding ring,’ complained Emma. ‘I just felt the time was right to move on to the next stage. What’s so shocking about buying a place with a guy you’ve been with for four years? We were living together, after all.’ Pierre doesn’t see it that way. Sharing a flat with Emma is fair enough but sharing a mortgage is a bridge too far. It panicked him into moving out and, the final ignominy, renting a room from her ex-boyfriend.
Couples are willing to team up and share beds, toothbrushes, even email addresses. But after a certain point alarm bells ring for some.There’s a problem when one half of a pair is contented with the status quo and the other needs additional assurances. ‘I’m commitment phobic,’ men sometimes say, as though it’s a badge of honour. I suspect the nesting instinct just hits them later.
You see, gender doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on how you feel about commitment, but age does. Clichés become clichéd for a reason, because they’re accurate, and the truth is that by 30 most women’s biological clocks are ticking.So Emma, when challenged, admits she was paving the way for starting a family - Pierre recognised this and bolted. Donal was engaged in a similar exercise but chose someone from the wrong age-group to commit to. Anna is 25. In five years’ time she’ll probably be ready for the C word, but by then Donal will be happily married to the next girl who happens along.Timing is all.
