Oh, how I hate having a boyfriend.

It’s not something you should be saying about the person that you like, but I really do. I love being with my boyfriend, talking with him and hanging out with him, but I absolutely hate this clingy feeling that is following me around everywhere I go.

This feeling doesn’t outweigh the fact that I really do love being with him. He is not the issue. What he represents in my life, that is the issue.

I think it all boils down to the fact that a boyfriend and the feelings attached with that title, all lead to one thing: the loss of emotional control.

A crush you can handle. A crush you can easily forget about when the day is done when you’re no longer seeing them. I can compartmentalize the feelings toward that person in the time and place whether I am around them or not.

I feel in my short time on this earth, I have become pretty good at this. I have perfected writing off butterflies in my stomach as unfortunate effects of a school girl crush, and it was easy for me. It worked for me.

You can’t do that with a boyfriend, or at least you’re not supposed to.

A boyfriend, for some girls, is almost like a release valve; all of their ooey-gooey feelings about this boy that they have spent weeks (and sometimes months) gushing and pining over is finally theirs. They can embrace in their full capacity the crazy clinginess that is basically written in a girlfriend’s job description.

I did and do not, want to allow this clingy feeling to enrapture and encapsulate me.

I haven’t ever been a touchy-feely person, and I don’t enjoy unnecessary displays of affection. Interestingly enough, I don’t mind holding hands with him or him hugging me in public. These are both fairly minor as far as PDA is concerned, but good golly it was and still is a big deal to me, and I have always advocated against them.

I like being around people (as long as they do not touch me), but I haven’t really ever felt this level of dependence on another person. For example, if one of my friends cancels or says she can’t hang out that day, it’s barely a blip on my radar.

But when he says he’s too busy to hang out, I am devastated. I really hate that feeling of disappointment, and logically, I know there’s nothing he could do to change it. And yet, it still bothers me. My boyfriend not being able to hang out because he has other things to do bothers me.

I feel like a complete freak and a big fat baby. I just want to scream: “GROW UP AND GET OVER IT!”.

I want to rid myself of this icky, clingy emotions and go back to my independence. Back to a time when cancelled plans meant nothing, and I could actually enjoy spending time alone.

Too bad that’s not going to happen anytime soon because even if I loathe these strings of attachment and I am learning that I may have a fear of commitment, I have liked this boy for years.

He has, whether or not he knows it, been a part of my life for too long to give up. I’m deeply afraid that the closer I get, the more devastated I’ll be when it’s over.

I know that’s not the most optimistic thing to say, but I like to say I’m a realist. And realistically speaking, he and I will go our separate ways when the time comes to go off to college at the end of this school year.

One side of me says to break up with him now before you get too attached. The other says to enjoy it while it lasts, no matter how it ends.

I tend to lean toward the latter.