Should I finish with my boyfriend?
QI have just finished my Leaving Cert. It’s a great feeling! I think I did well and am really looking forward to going to college. But I have a problem. I’ve been going out with this guy for two years. He’s in a school near me and our families know one another, so it’s very comfortable. It has all been very middle-class and respectable. Then I was in Dublin recently on a Saturday with him, and the Gay Pride parade was on. I am not gay and not interested in other girls that way but I thought the whole thing was fantastic. Seeing all those people dancing in the streets and kissing and hugging was wonderful. My boyfriend, on the other hand, thought it was coarse and rather disgusting. I started looking at him in another way. I’m only 18 and I know that I will probably end up getting married and having children and a pretty normal life. But I would like to be able to go a little crazy for the next few years in college and meet lots of people and do things I would never think of doing. I won’t go mad (I’ll get my degree and all that) but I want to see what the rest of the world is like. I want to go to all-night poetry sessions, work in a theatre, fall in love with an artist (for a while!), go to Bhutan or Madagascar. I can’t see the boyfriend with me in any of this. Should I dump him?
AI am always a little perturbed when I hear of a couple getting together at a very young age. There are so many pitfalls, one of them being dating exclusively and not experiencing different traits and differing personalities in what really are the formative years with regard to relationships. So two years is a long time to be dating when you are around 17 or 18. I also think it is good to have even a moderately ‘wild time’ in the early teens so that by the time you eventually settle down you are not feeling that you missed out on a lot of experiences. You seem to be coming to this conclusion yourself, and so I think that it is indeed time to re-assess the situation.
However, I hate the term ‘dump him’! He has done nothing wrong and deserves to be treated with respect so that he can be left with his dignity intact. I realise that in this ‘instant’ age relationships can be terminated by text but it is not something that I agree with. So I think that you should talk things through with him and suggest at least a break given that you started at such a young age. Explain that you would like to feel free when starting college as you want to have lots of different experiences.
At the same time it would also be a good idea for him to learn what life is like as a single person having for so long been part of a couple. I know that often guys find break-ups very difficult, particularly if they don’t see them coming. Girls at least have their friends with whom they can talk about their emotional life, but guys don’t find it as easy to discuss their feelings.
So try to be aware of all this when you have the conversation with him. It will not be easy — you obviously have a fair bit of history together by now and your families will have become used to treating you as an item. You may even be blamed for being heartless in ending the relationship, but from what you have told me I think it is better that you go with your gut and say goodbye to him.