(A response to 23 THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF GETTING ENGAGED BEFORE YOU’RE 23)
As the usual pre-Purim engagement season wraps up, I’ve been noticing how many of my friends are still single and are choosing to not get engaged and/or married before they hit the big (I don’t know about you but I’m feeling…) 22.
And you know what…I get it.
It’s too warm outside…who has time to cuddle and talk about their feelings….life after graduation is a breeze, being confused about your future is just so liberating…so why not prolong this honeymoon phase of your life, right? It’s hip. It’s cool. It’s independent. You have no strings attached to anyone or anything-the world is your oyster. When you’re single you have an excuse to pull off the same perfectly “Shirley Temple” (Aleha Shalom) curled hair you sported at your bat mitzvah, and also, Netflix is underratedly an AH-mazing best friend. Why would you ever want to put a ring on it? YOLO. YOSO. You’re only single once…
Oh wait.
Recent research shows that if you’re not married by the age of twenty two, you are more or less destined to be single forever. Being single is no longer just a part of the college experience, but rather, something that MORE: The Magazine for Older Women should probably be printing on. Healines could read,
“How to budget your retirement plan AND your dating life at the same time!”
“What’s HOT: Sixty and Still Single”
Don’t get me wrong I’d like to be single forever too. I want to always have a social calendar free of obligations, the thrill of being able to meet my soul mate on a CJF trip, and an excuse to never learn how to cook because I can just buy dinner in the caf. But WANT and NEED are two entirely different things. I NEED to start fulfilling MY obligation of building a faithful house in Israel and NEED to be the type of woman you WANT to marry. I understand that my dreams and selfish desires will NEED to come later.
Also, at the age of 22, I should know exactly who I am, what I’m doing, and who I want to be doing it with for the next year… and even more so, for the rest of my life. And that’s awesome.
What inspired me and what justifies my whining about all of my feelings in such a public forum is The Facebook. I keep seeing all of these notifications that “X and Y” are no longer in a relationship, or “A” is single. Then there are those pictures of girls posting selfies or pictures of them doing really cute things bythemselves which get about 136 likes within the first 2 minutes of being put up. Should I be thinking about hitting up the single scene? Since Stern Orientation week, I’ve never NOT had a serious boy friend! Is there something wrong with me? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME AND WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT IT FOR ALL THESE YEARS!?
But then I look at my life, my serious relationships, the wedding registry (I may or may not have ready to be posted) and my future marriage… and I realize that its awesome. It literally isn’t me, it’s them.
I have begun to notice a common thread amongst all these young bachelorettes: inexperience. Inexperience with dating, traveling, risks, higher education, career direction, religious exploration, etc… They’re all waiting for some backpacking trip to Thailand to find out who they really are, when they can really just do that by finding a husband. A husband can do that all for you…so I can’t help but feel like a lot of these girls who are single are doing it as a cop-out. Being single is a way for young people to hide behind some new Pintrest interior design project, Season 3 of Downton Abbey, or a late-night run to Tiberias, instead of dealing with life’s highs and lows. It’s a safety blanket. It’s an admission that the world is just too big and scary to deal with; thus, you now have no choice but to selfishly only care about yourself, write a blog or get a ridiculous haircut.
Don’t get me wrong, life isn’t just about terminal degrees, bills, and tough decisions. I recognize that it is important to travel, eat at fun restauraunts and instagram about it all. But guess what?! You’re not supposed to do it alone. At least that’s what G-d has to say about it (Genesis 2:18). And I don’t know about you, but I tend to trust Him on such things, ya know? So grow, learn, become the person you’re supposed to be, but do it with the father of your children!
Look, I recognize that my opinion is not going to be popular… especially amongst those who fall into the “in the 22 and above” category. But to quote the cinematic classic “Wedding Crashers,” (coincidence…I think not…) “Sorry, I’m not sorry.”
Sure. Some days I wake up and stare at my ceiling thinking: “I just wish I was single.” But then I think of what my life will be like when I’m married and I realize, who is really winning here? So in case I haven’t convinced you yet, here are a couple of more practical reasons to get engaged and or married before the age of 22.
22 reasons to get married before the age of 22:
1. If you failed your finals last semester….it’s totally fine as long as your husband got all As. (h/t Stern in the Know.)
2. You’ll be relieved in May when you won’t have to deal with the awkward, “who’s going to room with who in the Heights” drama. Everyone knows who you’re rooming with.
3. Why pay for your own toilet paper when you can buy a lifetime supply on your friend’s caf card?! Cheers to fake money!
4. You never have to worry about bad hair days or making time to shower, when you can always throw on that Kim Kardashian-inspired floor length sheitl you’ve had your eye on.
5. Shopping online is the best when you’re ordering for two! You always seem to meet the minimum free shipping limit. Sawwweeet.
6. No one can judge you for spending too much time in the library uptown…and now you can rightfully judge everyone else.
7. Maximize the opportunity for someone to pay for your morning commute by taking the GPATS bus. #tooreal #toosoon?
8. When you have to take you husband’s grad school plans into account, it will probably reduce the number of programs you can apply to. Wooohoo less applications to fill out!! Ain’t nobody got time for that.
9. Making dinner is a breeze because you have tons of leftover mushroom quiche, and strawberry mango salad left over from your bridal shower. You also still keep finding random bits of toilet paper from one of the shower games. You win some you lose some, right?
10. You now have a reason to stalk other peoples wedding pictures on Facebook…you need inspiration for your wedding…you’re not just stalking them for the sake of stalking them. Who does that?
11. Have trouble keeping in touch? Now you can use one of those free sheitl contests as a way to connect with all those hundreds of people you haven’t spoken to in years!!
12. You now have so many opportunities to do chessed and host your single friends for dinner, a shabbos meal, a hurricane…or even set them up with your husband’s chevruta!
13. Coincidentally, your wedding helped you realize your new-found love for running and neon colored sneakers.
14. You’re BFF with Nechama Price. ‘Nuff said.
15. Being married provides you with SO many more activities you can do while bored in class…checking your wedding registry seriously takes up a ton of time…time that you just don’t have during the week!
16. You have an entire new wardrobe courtesy of Sheva Brachot week. Worth it.
17. Being able to snuggle up on the couch and read before Friday night dinner is so much better than having to scavenge for your basheret at Kabbat Shabbat at Mount Sinai or the TAC-SOY Shabbaton.
18. Now you can freely give your opinion to your friends on EVERYTHING, because now that you’re married you’re TOTALLY an expert on life.
19. You always wanterd a cookbook filled with pictures of your friend’s faces in it! Why look at picture of delectable salad when you can look at a picture of you and that friend you don’t talk to so much, back when you were fat in seminary.
20. Now you have an excuse to wear mittens!! Winter gloves, and more importantly lab gloves just don’t fit over your cushion cut halo ring. It’s tough being a bio major, ya know?
21. Sharing a facebook with your husband is the BEST, cuz a. it allowed you to revive your facebook account- it was getting confusing remembering all of your friends emails and passwords and b. you get double the amounts of likes now that its your friends + his friends. But who’s counting anyway?
22. You get to spend everyday of the rest of your long life (Ad Meah V’esrim!) with the most AMAZING husband and best friend in the whole wide world.