What does the phrase “commitment issues” even really mean? It’s tossed around more at this school than “weapons of mass destruction” is in a press conference, but no one is born with a fear of commitment. There are obviously reasons that people fear commitment, or simply aren’t up to the challenge — and if you’re ever going to make headway in a relationship, these underlying factors are important to understand.

The scenario is dismal for commitment in the United States. You need look no further than our obsession with “newness”: our computers, MP3 players and cell phones become outdated the minute we buy them. Do we have an obsession with upgrading?

Maybe. As Americans, we are almost leading the world in divorce rates. (USA Today reports that divorce rates in America are declining — but that’s because fewer people are getting married.) Meanwhile, Italy’s rates are almost one-fifth of ours, and fewer than one percent of all marriages in India end in divorce. Sure, divorce is a more acceptable course of action in our country than others, and that must skew the statistics a bit; but perhaps it is a part of American culture to grow dissatisfied with our partners and replace them, like we replace our iPods, for the better, fresher model.

A growing acceptance for infidelity in the media only worsens matters, a trend that I find dangerous and discouraging. As an audience, we are more than willing to forgive a cheating protagonist when we believe that he or she is in love with the object of the affair: Julia Jentsch in The Edukators and Keri Russell in Waitress are prime examples. And we all sang along to “Scotty doesn’t know” in EuroTrip. On some level, we are glamorizing infidelity, leaving the plodding mundanity of commitment in the dust.

But it isn’t just cheating. Instability in relationships is, more often than not, tied to emotional immaturity. You shouldn’t believe for a second that once somebody hits the big 1-8 that they know anything about how to make decisions concerning relationships. Being an adult in the eyes of the law has absolutely no correlation with emotional maturity. So if he’s messing around, it may be because of problems with the relationship, but it’s just as likely that the problems actually lie within him, or you, or either of your abilities to commit. More than one-third of people in America who marry between 20 and 25 eventually get divorced, but the rate of divorce plummets to much safer levels for every five years thereafter. Age and emotional intelligence go together; as one goes up, so does the other. Maybe it’s an explanation, among others, for why women tend to date older men: they’re more emotionally mature.

Now, people in other countries tend to get married at younger ages than we do, but they still have lower rates of divorce — and presumably a stronger stomach for commitment. If we break up more frequently than people around the world do, then there’s something up with us, plain and simple. (Even the French are staying together longer and more often than we are.)

Are we too reluctant to emotionally invest in something that might mean forever? In a culture geared toward quantity and a disinterest in quality, I think that we reminisce more about our sexual conquests than our fulfilling and worthwhile relationships. All of these signs suggest that we have a weak understanding of commitment, but this should be nothing new. I still contend that it’s ingrained in our lives beyond our relationships. In the same way a high school student joins six clubs just to list them on a college application, we forget the essence of our membership and the reasons why we join them. We should be joining these clubs, and entering into relationships, because we are committed to each one specifically.

So why do we enter relationships? The question should be asked, either internally or verbally, every time we enter one. It is a hard question, but it’s invaluable. I can recall a time when my reason was “more guaranteed sex” — a repulsive, but common, reason people will enter a relationship, only to find they can’t commit.

If you’re still making those kinds of decisions about relationships, you need to rethink what you want from them. If you are not compatible with your partner at all, and there is no specific quality that stands out, and not even the slightest possibility for the relationship to change your life or your perspective, then it will fail. It might not fail immediately. It might even take a while, and you might even deceive yourself. You’ll get love-struck in the first couple of dates and the sex will be as romantic as it is great, but that will change. As soon as that DVR gets outdated, or as soon as you can list that club, you’ll replace it, or add a new one.