Love, BG

Dear Breakup Girl,

I stumbled upon your site looking up lyrics for some song I heard on the radio. The site was much more helpful/productive than reading lyrics to some sappy song ever could have been. But I still need your help.

I've been with my boyfriend for a year and a half.

I am 22. I'm about to graduate college. I graduated high school at 16 and have worked full--time while going to school ever since (hence my seven-year college career, and no I'm not a doctor, ha ha, I'm a graphic designer). I work for a Fortune 500 company. I get paid well. I am mature, successful and intelligent.

I never really had a boyfriend because of two big reasons, I guess. One: A lot of guys see me as "one of the guys." I don't and have never had many female friends. I seem to just relate to men better, at least as friends. They're straightforward, honest, and don't play games with their friends, and that works for me.

The other "big" reason I've never dated much is that I'm overweight. 240 and 5'5". I'm well-proportioned, good-looking and have style, but I'm big. Not exactly a trophy girl to take to the beach with your buds.

Then there's J. When we met, he was 18, I was pushing 21. He was about to (barely) graduate high school. I was booking shows for local bands. He was jumping around like a monkey at them. He was instantly in love. He broke up with his girlfriend of three years to go out with me. We started dating like two weeks later.

When it started, I really just wanted to be his friend. I've been real cautious with guys, because the one relationship I did have kinda hurt me bad. (I was 16, very confused and inexperienced; he was 22 and moved away after two months but kept it up with me for a year.) But after spending time with J. and having the most awesome makeout session ever, I was like, okay, we'll try this.

The first four or five months were dreamland. This was my first "in love" relationship, and as most people have told me, once you fall in love with someone, of course the first months will be wonderful.

However, as you can guess...the problems started. The most obvious one: he was so much more immature than me. If we consider simply when we graduated, instead of our ages, it seems that we are six to seven years apart. If we compare our intelligence and emotional maturity, the gap is larger than that.

I fell in love with him though. Hard. He constantly wanted to spend time with me, and I'd never had that kind of attention, so I obliged. I alienated a lot of my friends that way. I neglected my family. It seems my priorities were out of whack. I became depressed for several months when I stopped booking shows because the venue closed (my main passion and time-consumer) and lost basically all of my friends. That was the turning point. I think I became too dependent on him.

Here I am, a (formerly) independent, intelligent, college-educated professional, depending on a newly-out-of-high-school retail employee to meet my needs. He is a newly-out-of-high-school (well, a year now) retail employee with not much interest in college, and no goals in life except to get through the next week or so and just be a 19 year old dude.

I'm getting to the point. Really I am. The last couple months, I have really been upset about our relationship. From his point of view, it's great. He has a girlfriend that's the best thing that's ever happened to him, and he's in love. Being in love to him doesn't necessarily mean calling me a couple times a day, or having deep conversations. If we hang out a couple times a week, that's cool. We do not communicate on a serious level. If I try to bring up something bothering me, he shuts down on me, and won't talk. However, he can open up to his grandmother, mother, best friend, etc. I feel like he can do all the "lovey" things with me, and let me spend my money and time (I spend wayyy more than he does). (Then again, I earn almost triple what he does.) But he can't be truly intimate with me -- and I'm not talking about sex either. I'm talking about with thoughts and opening up.

I feel like I am dating a boy, and not a man. He doesn't seem to understand the notion of protecting, caring for, and being the MAN of the relationship. Maybe I've set myself up this way, but it seems I'm the one always driving over to his house to see him. I'm the one initiating the dates. I'm the one calling him first. I'm the one helping him with everything.

I love this boy. Seriously I do. I know that if I break up with him, his life will be in chaos. He wants to get married to me. He talks about it all the time. Everything is moving along in his eyes, and we're stronger than ever (his past relationships were chaotic at best). I feel like I don't want to hurt him, and he is such an awesome guy. I wish I wish I wish I had just been friends with him, and not taken it down the LOVE road. I fear that if I break up with him, I will be hated, and he will tell the next girlfriend about his horrible ex, just like he tells me about his horrible exes.

I am tired of waiting. I am tired of being the smartest person I know. I am tired of having no friends, but him getting to spend time with his. I am tired of feeling like the only committed one (even though in his mind he is). But I know if I break this off, it will tear me apart. I don't have plans or priority to find another guy if I do, but now that I've alienated my friends, I'm screwed.

I don't know if he will ever catch up to me. I don't want to be going through life looking back and pulling him by the wrist just so I can have someone beside me. Will he come around? Should I even wait? Does this qualify as ultimatum time, or am I being unfair by even getting into this from the start?

--Graphic Girl

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