It’s so easy to get into relationships. You start by making out with a girl, and, if it takes, suddenly you are doing that a little more regularly. Blink and now you can easily be referring to her as someone you are seeing. Blink twice, and she’s your girlfriend. In your 20s, this phenomenon happens pretty quickly because we have not yet learned to be cautious (oh, god, that was fun). If things don’t work out, for the most part, both of you move on and bounce back pretty quickly. Once the years enter into the next decade, though, the entire process changes. I love those beginning parts. Those first moments when you think this may be something. But now caution is kicked into high gear. So I hesitate. Not out of fear if it works out, but largely out of fear of when it doesn’t.  

Since I'm single and a bit older, there are (loud) whispers in my family that I may be scared to commit. Well, sound the loud game show buzzer that means wrong. I am totally cool with that plan if I were to meet the right one. But when I have been wrong about a girl in the past, it's taken the wind out of my sails. In one of my longest-running stabs at the adult couple life, I ended things. We were living together and she moved out. Basically, it felt like what a divorce must feel like, just minus the legal bills. I loved her, but I knew this had run its course. 

First off, when you are young, the closest you come to living together is sharing a bed when her parents are out of town. Now you are tallying who spent what on the curtains. Nothing sexy or fun about that. The exit is dramatic, and the impact is much more far reaching. Our lives were connected in more than just the romantic; they were intertwined in a practical way. Dissolving a partnership is a longer process than getting over f*cking your college girlfriend. 

The blame game is bound to kick in, too. Inevitably, anger sets in and you start to look, not just at who is responsible for the failing of the relationship, but who to blame for starting the whole damn thing. When breakups happen at the high-stakes table, it stops being important how it got there. But that doesn’t mean it won’t come up, because everything does. If you have both devoted a good part of your young-adult lives to building something, there is an undercurrent of frustration that you have both failed. Suddenly, you hit a snake on the board and are starting to look for another ladder on the next space. Nobody likes moving in reverse no matter how much you know it’s time to pack it in. And people like it even less when they are supposed to be building a life.  

I dated the hottest girl I've ever been with when I was 20. It started and ended fast. The sex was amazing. She would come over to mine or I would go to hers. When we broke up, it sucked for about a week on the emotional front. It was easy to move past it. I wasn't obsessed with the idea of whether or not I regret it. I was young, and the future was full of future girlfriends. I would never have imagined that she was going to be "the one" for me for the rest of my life. Why would I? I was 20. Most things at that point are still seen by our horny young eyes as steps leading to the top floor. You trip upward and move on. 

So here I am. Hitting the next leg of stairs, wondering if I am ever going to reach the top. With that type of pressure or expectation, any new love interest is going to carry a faint glimmer of hope of being "the one." And if you decide to jump in and give it a shot, things get a little more complicated than just spending weekends together. You may find yourself choosing where to spend Christmas or getting close with her family. Once you start to bring the big stuff into the conversation, you’re going all in. I can’t help but wonder how hard it will be to untangle the mess of a broken romance now, so I find myself hesitating to jump in head first. 

But here is what I also know: The breakups are harder now, but I have to believe that when the right one comes along, I will take that risk. I will go all in. But I may keep the receipt for the curtains just in case.