The ‘I Walk Alone’ Syndrome

Jason was born the only child to his parents. Living in a residential area, he didn’t have the childhood experience of hanging out with other kids in his neighborhood. He had enough books and video games to keep him company after school and during the holidays.

His parents rarely invited his cousins over for the holidays; and though relatives came visiting occasionally and vice versa, they didn’t last that long to forge any serious bond. He became the typical ‘mummy’s boy’; spent most of his time with her. She was his friend and confidante.

Due to his reserved nature and his attachment to his mother, he chose not to enroll as a boarding house student at senior high school. He remained a day school student where he hanged around his guy friends after school for a while and then head back home.

After high school, he went to the university where he lodged at a hostel but he went home almost every other weekend. He attempted dating a couple of times but they all fell through after some months. The girlfriends complained of his noncommittal attitude and after a while with no effort on his part, they quit the relationship. He never paid much attention to it; he attributed their reasons to mere girly pettiness.

After graduating from the university and then working full-time, Jason came to realize that he couldn’t keep a relationship for long. He confided in a friend who advised him to move out of his parents’ house so he could be independent. It would help him to open up to people more. He heeded to his advice and moved into an apartment.

But it didn’t help matters much. He realized he easily got tired of his relationships after a few months. He would just wake up one day and feel nothing for his girlfriend. Not because of an abhorrent habit of the woman, he just felt fed up. And so he would call it quits.

Years later after fathering two children with two different women who only spent some weekends with him, Jason can tell that he needs help. At age forty, he knows he is no longer a mama’s boy and he needs to settle down. But with his peculiar problem of not being able to stick with one woman for more than three months, he wonders how he can do it.

Jason had always had the ‘I walk alone’ syndrome and he was okay with it until he realized that he had come to the point where he didn’t want to anymore. He wanted to walk with someone but didn’t exactly know how.

Jason has a new girlfriend now. He really loves her and for fear of his ugly nature showing up, he makes her stay over only during weekends so he doesn’t get fed up with her. But he knows his ‘grace period’ would soon run out. What should he do? How can he overcome this syndrome and have a chance of building a life with her?

Help a brother out with your advice and suggestions. Any other observations may also be made. Kindly share your thoughts.

© Josephine Amoako 2016