I have to say this has been a really interesting break from school. I finally had enough money in my account to get my mother a relatively nice gift for Christmas and I'm finally old enough to experience the down town bar scene in my hometown. I suppose that this is just a part of the whole weird growing up thing that people experience after a while. But, I have noticed one thing about this break in particular that in some ways seems particularly off putting; and that is that I have seen more engagement announcements in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last year. Specifically, among people in their early twenties. Now let me preface that the rest of this article is not going to be about my opinion on young adults getting engaged in their early twenties; but with the fact that I’ve seen all of these engagements happening I have asked myself couple of questions regarding the topic of marriage and the realizations I made during that internal dialogue is where the rest of this article shall begin.

I’m currently 21 and about to graduate from college in one semester, and at this point in my life I can guarantee myself that I am nowhere near ready to be engaged to anyone let alone married. Granted I am currently single so that makes getting engaged a bit more difficult, but even if I wasn’t single I still wouldn’t be ready for that type of commitment. Even if I was sure that whoever I was dating was “The One” I can still guarantee you that I personally wouldn’t be ready to be engaged. The key word in all of this is personally. The fact of the matter is that every individual is their own person and they are aware of what they are and aren’t capable of, who am I to judge their choices just because I personally wouldn’t be able to do what they are.

Of course there are some exceptions to every rule, but this is more in regards to any interference, Realistically, asking people to completely stop judging is practically impossible as everyone has their own biases towards any subject, that’s a given. However, interfering is another issue that shouldn’t happen, unless you see some red flags popping up, and they do happen in multiple relationships. But that is not every young adult who get engaged. Ultimately, you are the one who knows your friend well enough to see when the red flags are popping up and you’re not just imposing your personal biases on them.

Now, as for those of you who are envious of the fact that you still aren’t engaged yet or that you’re still single while your friends are either in relationships or engaged, I have one piece of advice for you, don’t be. Just don’t. Yes, I recognize that that is also easier said than done, but ask yourself are you really ready to be engaged. I mean half of being engaged is finding the right person to be engaged to, isn’t it? I mean you literally cannot get engaged without another individual, or maybe you can, in which case good on you for loving yourself and making yourself happy. To be honest that is what we should be striving to do and if some people happen to find other people along the way to help them in this endeavor good for them, but don’t strive to be like them, because their happiness isn’t the same as your happiness.