There I was — a saucer-eyed foundling at the ripe old age of twenty-one. My distraught girlfriend was on the other end of the line, wailing like a preschooler whose ball had just been stolen. I stood there, phone in hand, wondering what the hell I’d done wrong.

I’d just finished work and had something on my mind I wanted to talk about. Foolishly, I thought we could have an uncomfortable conversation. I was half right. I’m perfectly capable of tough talks — just not with her.

The crime? I wasn’t sure I wanted kids. Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d ever want them. Somewhere in that verbal knife fight, I folded.
“Ok, ok babe, we’ll have kids. You’re right — they’re a blessing.”

It wasn’t surrender. I wasn’t some pushover. Not anymore. It was a faux olive branch — a temporary ceasefire, a white flag while I planned my exit.

The final shove came at a birthday party. Back then, I thought I was the good guy who’d found “his person” early, cruising down a one-way street to marriage and children. But that night? Big party, too many attractive women in outfits that required no imagination, and me — pleasantly crossfaded — suddenly realizing I’d traded my freedom for the societal equivalent of a horse led to a glue factory. Only this one had a wedding registry. I only wanted marriage and kids at the time because I thought it was what you were ‘supposed to do’. I thought it was all ‘part of the plan’.

So I ended the relationship and dove headfirst into the kind of freedom that looks great in your twenties and downright stupid at any other age. But my point here isn’t to gloat over my hedonist antics. It’s this: men are often running on societal bloatware, installed long before they ever question it. Some never do — but I digress.

If you can’t answer why you want certain things, those aren’t your desires. They’re someone else’s install. Of course, don’t torch your relationship just to prove a point — but do ask yourself if the life you’re building is yours, or just the default settings.