It seems every Sunday night, Mark Zuckerberg likes to play this game with my Facebook Newsfeed. People keep changing their relationship statuses and uploading photos of their left hands with sparkly diamonds. If I am REALLY lucky, a sonogram photo makes it onto the list of most recent news. I have no problem with people getting married (or the gender of either party). I get excited for old camp counselors and baby sitters and family friends when they announce their engagements, their pregnancies. My issue lies with the people I just graduated with, who are still struggling to find stable jobs, who have just recently moved out of their parents’ homes, and who are committing themselves to this one person who they met in the basement of a fraternity for the rest of their lives.
I can’t commit to a nail polish color without a minimum of six minutes of deliberation, let alone a husband. The word alone makes me break out in hives.
Maybe this has to do with me being selfish. My last relationship ended because the guy felt I prioritized every other aspect of my life over him. I didn’t see the problem with this. Happy hour invitations and Homecoming weekend at Penn State with my friends will always rank higher than a date night. I refuse to be the person who drops her friends for a guy or changes my opinions just to appease someone else. At twenty-freaking-two, my priorities are my career, my gym’s class schedule, and the current sales in the Nordstrom shoe department.
I am still learning about chevron and the difference between left and ring wing politics and the rules of Olympic handball. I am still learning about myself and how to make myself a happy, fulfilled person. How are you so comfortable with who you are as a person, at 22, 23, 24, that you know who you plan to spend your ENTIRE life with? The way science is improving that equals EIGHTY years with one person. Hell, I wouldn’t even want to spend 80 years with Justin Timberlake. (JT, if you’re reading, I am lying.)
The people my age who are pregnant, on purpose, scare me even more. If you knew the current state of my bedroom or the backseat of my car or the inside of my purse… you’d know I am not responsible enough to take care of myself, let alone be in charge of another tiny human. I can’t sew a button, I can’t iron a shirt, and I can’t make a meal that doesn’t revolve around eggs and bacon. There would be a lot of googling of “how to change a diaper” and “are babies able to eat cold, leftover Chinese food.”
It’s not that I don’t like kids. I like them when they are clean and funny and smart and in cardigans and in bow ties. I just like returning them to their owners even more.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I was never the girl growing up who had planned her wedding and her fairytale family. I had plans to write books and travel and become a lawyer and a plastic surgeon and a forensic scientist and a detective. Whatever, my Grandma introduced me to Law and Order and CSI when I was ten. It happens. If a husband and two kids and a picket fence fits into my plan of “having it all,” it would be breaking news to me.
I don’t understand when we switched from being career-driven, focused, creative young professionals to girls fawning over baby onesies and wedding registries. I will continue to spend the next few years focusing on making myself a better public relations executive while these others girls get their official MRS. degrees. Maybe by the time I’m 36 I’ll consider getting married. If I have the time. And if I do get engaged, you better freaking believe I’m getting a manicure before I mupload that photo onto my Facebook page.
