By Brooke Hill | Staff Writer
In the Baylor Bubble, many girls fear not finding a Baylor sweetheart during their time here, stressing that they will end up forever alone or a cat lady.
In today’s social media-centered society, it’s easy to get caught up in the perfect engagement photos being posted on Instagram and sit there wondering why you haven’t found your perfect someone yet.
But guess what? We’ve barely entered our 20s. On average, women and men marry when they are age 26.5 and 28.7, respectively, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data. A huge percentage of those marriages don’t stem from college relationships. College isn’t the only time you’ll have a chance to meet a person you could spend the rest of your life with.
It’s completely acceptable to choose to spend your college years focusing on figuring out who you are and advancing your personal goals and career. If you’re one of those lucky people who has found your other half, the one who makes you a better person and supports you in all of your aspirations, more power to you. But it’s OK if you haven’t, too.
It’s also OK to not have an interest in getting married, or to simply just accept the fact that it might not be in God’s plan for you. Most of the time, when girls mention something about not planning to get married, responses include comments such as, “Oh don’t worry, you’ll find someone eventually.” The reality is, some people just don’t want to get married. As it turns out, this lifestyle has its benefits.
A recent study conducted by W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, and Robert Lerman, an economics professor at American University, suggests that women receive larger salaries when they’re single, compared to their married counterparts.
In work presented at the American Psychological Association’s 124th annual conference, Bella DePaulo suggests that singles may experience greater psychological growth than some married people and have better social lives than some married people. She also found that the more self-sufficient single people were, the less likely they were to experience negative emotions. However, DePaulo didn’t recommend one lifestyle over the other.
“There is no one blueprint for the good life,” she said. “What matters is not what everyone else is doing or what other people think we should be doing, but whether we can find the places, the spaces and the people that fit who we really are and allow us to live our best lives.”
So if you’re one of those girls who dreams about getting that “ring by spring,” good for you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to get married for a while. Just don’t belittle anyone who isn’t concerned with getting married anytime soon, or ever. Go live your best life.
