Started seeing a girl a year ago and she seemed a bit different: Wouldn't get pissed off about trivial things, she didn't seem insecure, by all means she just seemed intent on having a good time.

So we've had a good time, seeing each other has been like a breath of fresh air - I just couldn't believe I'd found a girl who wasn't neurotic enough to start systematically ruining everything for both of us!

Very recently, things have just started to look like they're teetering on the edge of a nose-dive. She's getting more tetchy, those 'harmless friends' and ex's aren't brushed aside as easily as they used to be. We take a small holiday together, we don't argue, but it's just not right.

So I'm wondering what's going on, and then in the middle of a sleepy silence she says "I bottle things up". After about ten minutes trying to get the lid off this bottle, out spurts a foamy torrent of contradictions: "I sometimes think we're too young to be in a long-term relationship... But I really love being with you... It's just that it's all I know... I wonder what it'd be like to be single again... But I don't want to be on my own... Not that I'm just staying with you because I don't want to be alone... I want to be with you, it's just that the thought of being single has got stuck in the back of head... All that's bothering me is that it's there..." and eventually, after chatting away about it for a while... "I love you, I don't want anything to change.", and then the most cushy and sickly few hours you could ever see.

Thing is, I sort of agree, I really want to stay with her and we're happy together but I'm 18 (she's 17), we still both have university to come and it just seems too early to be so committed. It almost feels like we should have a hiatus and pursue solo projects and then reunite for a big tour and a comeback album. Only thing is... well that just wouldn't work.

You are too young, acolyte. I will say that from personal experience.

With the foamy torrent of contradictions in mind she's not sure either mate. If she's not sure, it's not going to last. Trust me.
If the question is in the back of her head, she's got doubts. Doubts are like cracks in a wall...Sooner or later they fuck everything up.

The only polar opposite example I can give you is my relationship...
I told my missus very early on that the long haul was my plan. I don't want to get with a girl if it's going to be a waste of time. If it was going to be a waste of my time, I might aswell go and fuck the hot, kinky, slutty bitches again and leave the next morning with no strings whatsoever.
She said she wanted someone who loved her, which I did for a long time and still do very much.
We're collecting up presents for our first anniversary right now...It's in nine days. And I have to say, things have been great...No questions, no arguments, no distrust...Just pure, simple love between two people and for the first time I can say I know it will last. She adapts as much as I do...And when she adapts, it involves buying sexy underwear for bedtime! I have a fucking amazing girl.

The thing with love and being with someone, my friend, is knowing that it will last and there are no questions about it whatsoever. Questions lead to fighting. Fighting leads to distrust. Distrust leads to the dark side. Nowhere near where you wanna be.

If you guys aren't sure...Like you really shouldn't be at your ages, accept it as a learning experience and move on.

You could well be right. The only problem is that we aren't on the same page. She's started college and there's this new group of exciting people, I can see why being single would be more fun for her the majority of the time. Me on the other hand, I'm taking a gap year before university and hanging around in a pretty small and talentless group of old friends and workmates.

She's seemed dead set on us giving it a chance all along, and we really do have something special. She's scared that I'll go to university next year and forget about her, break up and start playing around, by which time the people at college aren't new and exciting anymore, she's sad about being single and I'm off having a whale.

As in a whale of a time. Not shagging a fat girl.

Your relationship sounds like how our year's been, which is why this is coming as a bit of a shock. If I sound indifferent it's because I don't like to be the guy who's squaring up the paintings as the titanic sinks. If she sounds indifferent it's because she's a totally different person as of about a week ago. (Coincidentally(?) our year anniversary.)

She said she's been bottling it up, she probably held all those things back because she knew it was contradictory. When you let things out, you don't have to make sense, or else you are still trying to be orderly.

None the less, I can see that's not your problem. The perfect relationship at a young age is a bitch because you are going into a new, changing world and you yourself will change.

Psycho's probably right, but that doesn't mean give up, see how things go, this could just be a passing phase, after all, if you've never had a period like this in your relationship, things have to get out of control sometime.

Thanks

She did know it was contradictory, yes, and she was having a bitch of a time getting it out. I know what you mean - people change but it seems crazy to blame change when every change we've both gone through in the first 11 months just brought us closer.

Seeing how things go is maybe the best thing to do, I just hate the thought of deciding to carry on and letting things fizzle out as this shit just spins around in the back of our heads.

The relationship was due a bit of a spin out of control - the more radical thing to do would be to break up and get back together again if we've tried the single life and just want to be together after all. That way seems more up-front.