Stop getting engaged!

Love,

Jill.

Seriously.

The amount of people from my highschool who are currently a)engaged, b) married, or c)parents is freakishly huge. I am 21. Why does it seem like a good idea to legally bind yourself to another person at that young of an age? I could see it hundreds of years ago when people died at 45, but really, I’m hoping to last at least into my eighties and 60 years in the company of one other human seems extensive. Now, I’m not saying it’s not romantic or that in some of these individuals situations it could end up that way, but really the odds are against them.

I just don’t know why it seems necessary to do it right now. What’s the difference if you’re dating for 4 years or 12 years before you decide to bring the government into things? don’t know. I go back and forth with my personal opinion of marriage.

I was raised on Disney movies. I like any occasion that requires fancy dresses and pictures. I like an excuse to party. I like diamond solitaires and proposals. I like the idea of committing yourself to another person in a ceremony in front of your friends and family. I don’t like the the idea of sharing assets. I don’t like the idea of losing my identity to a title. I don’t like the idea of a “certificate” that’s legally binding. I don’t like the common practice of women getting engagement rings and therefore, are “taken,” but men are ringless until the law comes into it.

Basically I think it comes down to the fact that I’m still young. We’re still young. Most of these people haven’t even had a real job yet. They haven’t learned how to exist on their own. Most of them probably don’t know what they want or who they are. And they’re jumping right into adulthood and “real life” through marriage because “it’s what you do after you graduate college”. Says who? Where is this written?

I want to shake my peers. Say, “snap out of it, go, travel, experiment, move, learn, be young!”

Instead, I say “congratulations,” and and take bets on when they’ll divorce.