Photo credit: D. Sharon Pruitt

Love is not one-size fits all. It doesn’t operate on a universal timetable. So why are we expected to find the person we want to spend our life with by the time we’re 22? At no time is this expectation more apparent than around Valentine’s Day. With chocolate, teddy bears, conversation hearts, and questions about your dating status coming out of the woodwork.

Jane Austen Dating

Though my iPhone says it’s 2012, it sure feels like I’m living in a Jane Austen novel from the questions I get about my personal life, especially in February:

“Not married? Don’t you want to get married?”

I never tell them that marriage actually is not a goal of mine. I’m too afraid they’ll drop dead right then and there.

“No boyfriend! But you’re so pretty. What’s wrong with you?”

Never does it occur to them that something is wrong with the gentlemen callers, as Tennessee Williams once dubbed them.

“You know you aren’t getting any younger. Better get a fella before they’re all gone!”

I’m not?! Gee and here I thought I was pulling a Benjamin Button this whole time. Thanks for the update.

Love on My Time

In this day and age when women are theoretically equal (I do not call earning 80 cents on the dollar equal but that’s a discussion for another day), why is it still so shocking for a woman in her 20′s to be unmarried without everyone assuming that she has some hideous defect? I never hear my guy friends of the same age being grilled in a similar fashion.

I do not mean this piece to be an embittered diatribe against all things love, nor do I mean to imply that I am against love. Quite the contrary. But I want love on my terms and my timetable. The idea that we should have found love by a certain randomly assigned point in our lives is what I believe pushes so many to rush into marriage and consequently causes them to later get a divorce.

Your Choice

You should never marry someone just because you dislike like being alone or because you’re with them at the age when you think you should be married. You have to wait until you are ready. True, there is the chance that you never meet that “perfect” person. But you have to ask yourself this question:

Would you rather wait for something amazing or settle for something mediocre?

Me?

I don’t settle.

I only do amazing.