Curse of The Skateboarder
It has been my experience as a skateboarder that maintaining a relationship is one of the hardest things to do.  Having a girlfriend has been far more difficult than any trick I've ever learned on four wheels.  I don't think there's something unique to skateboarders that makes it harder.  Maybe race car drivers have the same problem. 

The first thing that comes to mind when searching for an answer is a skateboarder's lifestyle.  A skater doesn't simply stop skating when he steps off his board.   Skateboarding entrenches the mind, body, and spirit.  A skater becomes skateboarding.  He thinks, eats, and breathes it.  He sees the world in a whole different light than non-skaters.  Some call it "skate goggles."  The end result is a person who is very one-track minded.  He often can't be bothered with something as simple as, say, remembering to call his girlfriend. 

A non-skater generally has a hard time comprehending this phenomenon.  If you've ever heard the phrase, "Only a skateboarder knows the feeling," then you can start to understand.  Only a skater knows the feeling of weightlessness as he flies through the air.  Just like he knows the feeling he has of indifference towards just about everything else but skating.  In fact, to a skater, this is all quite rational.

This lifestyle a skater leads is most often what first puts strain on a relationship.  Take the question of time, for example.  To a skateboarder, any and all time in search of, around, near, beside, or at all having to do with skateboarding, is time well spent.  To a non-skater, this can easily be seen as excessive, and quite simply, annoying.  To a girlfriend, however, it can be, and often is, taken a bit more personally.  To a skater's girlfriend, the time he spends on the board is simply time that they’re not together.  It becomes a contest.  It's a sad thing because the girlfriend is pitting herself against an inanimate object-- a skateboard.  Most often, there's really no contest.  The skateboard wins. 

T he majority of skaters fall in love with skateboarding first and girls second.  You can get hurt partaking in either, but most soon learn that love scars hurt more and last longer than skate scars.  A skater will start comparing the two.  A skateboard will never treat you bad.  It will never leave you.  It won't get jealous if you bring another skateboard home.  It's always there when you need it, and never when you don't.  To all you young skaters, the choice is simple.  Skateboarding is everything.  I was just like you once. 

As you get older, you’ll find that women have a lot to offer that skateboarding does not.  You’ll find that those love scars do fade with time, just as you’ll find that those skate scars are taking a little longer to heal.  There is, I think, a happy medium-- some kind of middle ground where a skater can meet a woman and overcome all the hurdles that skateboarding can throw in the way of a relationship. 

All of this, of course, is assuming that your girlfriend doesn't skate.  But how many girl skaters are out there?  Perhaps a better question is, why aren't there more?   Nonetheless, skateboarders continue to have a hard time in relationships simply because they’re skaters.   Still, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  At twenty-five years old, I  found a happy medium, that middle ground.  And I fell in love with her just like I did with my skateboard when I was 12-- blindly, wholeheartedly, eternally.