No Wedding Bells Here
I feel as though all of my friends are already married or getting married. I'm 23 years old, and I already I feel as though I've passed my expiration date.I'm from New Jersey. We consider people who marry before the age of 25 to be child brides. And yet, many of my friends were married between the ages of 20 and 22 (and none of them had shotgun weddings). I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, because I am so far behind the curve. I couldn't get married right now if my life depended on it. It's enough of an adventure just to take care of myself. I could never add a husband to the mix right now. At least, I think I couldn't.
Another thing that frightens me is that, with the exception of two couples, all of these people got married within a year or two of meeting each other. Is that quick? Because it seems quick to me. Two of my friends from college, both of whom were a year behind me, are married to men whom they weren't even dating when I graduated. Scary.
Could it happen that way for me? Like that, BOOM? I'm currently dating someone, and we haven't been together long enough to even begin to consider marriage (he's from Jersey, too), but I wonder if we're missing something fundamental. Should I call it quits? My friends who are married (or on their way to getting married) weren't looking for husbands. They probably didn't feel themselves any more prepared for marriage than I do right now.
And then there are my friends who have been together for years now, with no sign of marriage on the horizon. Do I want to get to the point where I have been with same person for four or five years with no stronger commitment than is connoted by the words "girlfriend" and "boyfriend"? In response to a mass email amongst my girlfriends to determine where we'd have another friend's batchelorette party next year, one girl wrote in, ostensibly to say that she was up for whatever was decided, but really to inform us about how her relationship of five years ended. Her boyfriend called her to let her know that things weren't working out for him, and that he already had another girlfriend. FIVE YEARS! Not that I feel that anybody in a relationship automatically owes the partner a lifetime of commitment after dating for a certain number of years, it seems that there should be some sort of way to make sure that things like this don't happen. The friend who this happened to is now single for the first time in her adult life, and she has no idea what to do. She's hopeful that there's somebody out there for her, but being hurt like this has got to make it more difficult to get out there and try to find somebody who will give her the happiness she deserves.
But, as always, I wonder: What about me and my happiness? When is it going to be my turn?
