My Thoughts on Marriage

So a couple years ago, Jenna Marbles posted a video regarding her thoughts on marriage. At the time when it came out, I was all "yeah Jenna Marbles, that's cool, I'm 18, I'm not getting married for another hundred years."

Now all of a sudden I'm a person in my twenties and everyone's all "hey, when are you getting married?"

Besides the fact that I genuinely forget that I'm actually old enough to commit my life to someone forever, my head explodes every time someone implies that I'm mature enough (hah!) and old enough to be like "yup, that's it, gonna settle down and start a family now."

WHUT.

So after flipping out after seeing people my age get married and feeling the increasing pressure to commit myself (pun intended), I thought I would present my own views on marriage, and, for the most part, agree with Jenna's claim that PEOPLE NEED TO SLOW THE F*** DOWN. I have a lot of rants about this topic, so there will probably be a part II to this post some time in the near future--and yes, this is another full-fledged rant post, you have been warned.

I also want to make very clear that this is my personal opinion about marriage, and I'm only relaying how I've personally experienced the expectation to get hitched in my early twenties. I have friends who have very different thoughts on relationships/marriage, and we've managed to have conversations about the topic without tearing each others' eyeballs out, and I'm not trying to say any opinion is wrong. I welcome different thoughts and experiences with marriage, so please do not take this as a personal attack on anyone's beliefs. Okay. Disclaimer over.

Having been in two serious relationships, I've noticed a huge shift in mindset from high school to college. It was expected that my high school boyfriend and I were just having "fun," seeing where time brought us and all that hippie stuff, and everyone, including us, expected the relationship to end one way or another.

Fast forward to college, and suddenly everyone is talking rings and living together, and there's this sudden expectation that if you can't definitively see yourself marrying this person, then leave immediately--that if you're not picking out wedding dresses and flowers, you're leading this person on.

While I agree that if you definitively CAN'T see yourself marrying this person, and they've made it clear that they're interested in settling down, it's time for a serious talk. But it's mind-boggling enough to think about what I'm doing post-graduation, much less how a boyfriend is going to fit into the equation. With my college boyfriend, let's call him N, people were going "so where do you see yourself going with N? What are you going to do?"

Well, I see us going to get some coffee and perhaps watching some New Girl.

That's not to say that there aren't people who are afraid of commitment and that couples should never get married, but what is this sense of urgency about? Am I really supposed to know exactly who I am at 21, much less who I want to spend the rest of my life with? It's not a relationship death sentence to realize that you can't consider marriage just yet because you're still changing, you're still figuring things out.

Yes, it's fun to fantasize about your wedding, but it's almost easier to talk about dresses and first-dance songs when you know that it's not expected to plan those things right now. Relationships are hard enough when you focus on the present moment; they're nearly impossible when you try to plan out every single move and decide that marriage is the only option.

Until part II of this post, 

Namaste.