Almost every time I sign in to Facebook these days, another one of my friends is engaged. Let's forget for the moment the fact that some of these "friends" are actually more like acquaintances from high school I freely admit I only friended because I was curious about what they are up to, but everyone is getting engaged. There were two new wedding photo albums on my news feed this week. This week! For a time I was taking some small comfort in the fact that there were a handful of my Facebook friends who were not engaged, I was not alone. This is no longer the case.
The un-engaged, un-married club is becoming much more exclusive, you see. There are not many of us left. We're a dying breed, the reasonably attractive, fairly intelligent, single twenty-somethings who don't have a significant other (here being a fiancee or spouse) with whom to share things like food, student loan debt, an apartment, and a name. This club is awesome to the max. We have to change the secret handshake every couple weeks because people keep getting engaged and leaving the club.
The other scary thing when you get to be my age is that your friends start having babies. Now, I have no problem with babies. They're small and cute and make funny noises and do funny things and make people happy. The thing is that I personally am so far from ready to have a baby that babies are not even on my radar right now. The fact that people my age and younger are having them at a somewhat alarming rate is making me feel left behind. I thought it was scary when my friends were just getting engaged, but now that there are kids in the mix (everywhere) it's as if I'm now two steps behind everyone else.
Two steps behind?! That's like being the one of your friends who has only seen A New Hope when everyone else is finished with Return of the Jedi! You wouldn't know about Yoda, or that Darth Vader is Luke's father! (Spoiler alert.)
Don't misunderstand. I'm very happy where I am. I have a great job, a supportive family, the most amazing boyfriend on the planet and though I'm in my late twenties, I don't feel like I need to get married and start a family right now. A few years ago after I graduated from college I was feeling the pressure to get married and "start my life," but that's (thankfully) passed and these days I'm just happy being happy with what I have - which is a pretty sweet deal. The only things I could ask for is that The Boyfriend and I live in the same city, and for a big, big dog. The irritating thing is a tiny voice in my head occasionally wondering if I should be feeling like a failure due to my single and childless status, based on the information I'm getting from my Facebook peers.
< sarcasm > And we should definitely compare ourselves to our friends,
right? < /sarcasm >
With that in mind, I continue to be two steps perhaps not behind but in another direction, and continue to be content with that. It's not like it's a race.
4 comments:
You have the right attitude. When you get old like me, you will be glad to have had the extra time as a strong, single, independent woman. Time flies faster as you age, so just enjoy this time. Marriage is great--and I think better if you have time together before babies. Those little suckers tend to stick around for a good 20 years!
Thank you! I feel like a lot of my peers rushed into things without really taking time to figure out what they wanted, or who they were on their own. Which is, of course, a perfectly reasonable option, it's just not the right one for me.
Hee, if I'm any indication, kids can stick around for even longer than years... ;)
Thank you for elaborating on my rant. This is amazing. I don't know when you wrote this in comparison to when I wrote my wedding rant but I think we may be on the same psychic wave lengths :P
I think they were within a day of each other, which is funny. Weddings, weddings... expensive, and everywhere!
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