Travel back to my sophomore year of college. I am at the reception at my cousin’s wedding surrounded by other family members at the table. The room is filled with joy for the new happy couple and the future looks bright for them as they star lovingly into each other’s eyes. For fun, we start talking about when the next wedding might occur and suddenly all eyes fall on me, now being the oldest female in my generation of family members yet to be married. In a way, you could say I was “next in line” for the bridal walk. All I could think was how I could be the next one to marry if I wasn’t even in a relationship. You could say that’s where my rush to get married started.

Travel back to my middle and high school years, I was always the type to plan my life out years in advance growing up. I had everything mapped out; I knew where I was going to school, what I would study, what job I would get, and, presumably, when I would get married and have children. Majority of the plan that I had laid out my whole life has come true. I went to the college that I wanted, majored in education like I wanted, got the job I wanted, and even got to live in the place I wanted. All the planning and hard work in my life has resulted in my being very lucky and reaching my professional goals. I got a well-paying job (as far as teaching is concerned) in a good school district, and I am able to live on my own and support myself financially. From looking at how post-grad life usually rolls, I would say that my post-grad life has been very successful on the career end.

However, despite all the success I’ve had at a young age, the question everyone seems to focus on is “Are you dating anyone?”

Now it’s present day. I am now quickly learning the dread of watching people you knew in high school and college getting married and having children, all the while I’m spending every night either writing up lesson plans or watching Netflix. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy for those people and I wish them all the best for their future. I just can’t shake the feeling that I should be in the same shoes as them. After all, 14-year-old me made a plan. I was supposed to start a relationship in college, fall in love, get engaged at 23, get married at 25, then have a few freedom years with my hubbie until I decide to have kids at 29. So how come, after all the success I’ve had with planning out my life, this part didn’t?

One thing I quickly learned, is that you can never plan when you are going to fall in love and who with.

Finding someone to love is very complicated. Growing up, shows and movies ingrained that sparks fly when you look into the eyes of your first love for the first time and that fire continues to burn until it leads to a happily ever after. Yeah, that was a lie.

Dating is tough. My standards are admittedly high, so if a guy didn’t meet those standards, I had no interest. Now the few times I did find a guy that mostly met my standards and I actually liked, they either were not interested, seemed uninterested, were not ready to be in a relationship, or turned out to be f***boys in the end. So yeah, most of my years were spent being not-so-happily single. Meanwhile, family and friends would wonder why I couldn’t find a guy, as if there was a constant line of eligible bachelors outside my door.

I could go into the dating culture of today, but I feel like that should have its own article itself. So, let me get back to why many girls (and guys, believe it or not) seem to be in such a rush to get into a relationship and get married.

In our culture, as in almost every other culture, marriage is something that is supposed to happen. You’re supposed to get married and have kids. There’s never a question of how, just when. When will you date again? When do you plan on getting married? Have you tried online dating? Why don’t you give that guy another chance? After a while, all those questions start to make a single guy or gal feel as if all their other successes do not fully count unless they’ve accomplished the game of love and family. No matter how much a person succeeds in their career, it means nothing without someone to love. If anything, it’s seen as selfish to just focus on a career.

So why is there a rush? We want to be successful, at least in the eyes of others. That success usually includes having a career and having a family. Without the family, many people feel as if they haven’t fully reached the full satisfaction of life. Plus there are the dreaded stories of being in your 30’s and not being with someone, which leads to the “crazy cat lady” life. From what everyone makes it out to be, it gets harder and harder to find love the older you get. So, in order to find it, we feel the pressure to find it while we are still “young and beautiful.”

Now I wish that I could say that I am strong and independent enough to resist these feelings of inadequacy. In many ways, I am. I feel comfortable in the life I am living now and my future is looking bright. However, some days I can’t shake the feeling that I should be out searching for my “one true love” so that I can have my happily ever after.

Maybe someday I’ll find someone who will make my heart skip a beat and helps me kick start a happily ever after, but until then, I’ll keep my strong and stubborn head on my shoulders and focus on being the best person I can be for myself.