“Are you emotionally available?”

When she asked me this I hesitated.

When you girls ask a question like that?

I know exactly why you do.

By the time you’re prepared to come right out, and ask this of a guy you’re interested in? You have a long history of guys who have “loved you and left you.”

Because of this?

If a guy won’t commit?

You assume he’s just a player.

If he wasn’t playing the field?

What good reason could he have, for NOT committing to you?

This is the classic error of thinking the whole world fits into either/or thinking. If it is not THIS, then it must be THAT. There can’t be any alternative.

But is that true?

Are these really the only two options?

Commitment or emotional unavailability?

Are they actually opposites at all?

Take a closer look, and you’ll realize that’s not true.

To see this is definitely not the case, all you need to do is examine the terms themselves. Commitment has nothing to do with emotion. It is actually an act of WILL.

I know this well.

I was committed for years.

But all the while, I was completely emotionally unavailable.

My long term partner had my commitment.

She didn’t have my HEART.

When you understand how this can be the case, you start to recognize the opposite is true also. Insisting on commitment makes YOU emotionally unavailable.

What?

That’s right.

Requiring commitment INTERFERES with emotional availability.

If I’m really emotionally available to you?

Why would I require you to commit to me?

Requiring commitment from your partner, means you’re only emotionally available to them IF they do so. Otherwise no matter how emotionally warm you feel toward them, you’re still going to WITHHOLD your heart from them.

This is why I say it.

You girls are the emotionally unavailable ones.

If you would accept it unconditionally?

I would give you my love in a heartbeat.

But just like players who are only “out for sex?”

With you, it is commitment or the friend zone.

What do you think girls? Do you really have the market on emotional availability, or are you actually the one who has been holding back your heart?