Recently, I was at a club with a friend and we were talking to some strangers. One noticed my ring and then asked how old I was. When I said “21” he replied (quite angrily), “Why the hell are you getting married so young?” he proceeded to aggressively explain to me that this is a horrible decision I will regret in a few years. When I tried to respond at all, he adamantly refused to listen to any possible reasoning I presented, writing me off as “naive.” Now, this may have just been one particularly drunk, rude fellow, but his attitude is one I've seen around relatively often.

The idea is that your 20's is a time for change, a time to “find yourself,” basically an extension of your teen years but with a little more freedom and responsibility. Most seem to think that for some reason, your personality will change dramatically from 20-25. I've heard the phrase, “You don't even know who you are yet,” more than once, with the implication that I will look back and scoff at my younger self like they were currently scoffing at me. Every article of advice for 20-somethings includes something along the lines of “don't be too serious about anything, and definitely don't get married and settle down.” There are countless bits of advice, all touting traveling, following whims and passions alike, having flings (both platonic and romantic) and all around not tying yourself to anything and trying everything once, in order to “find yourself.” They are all based on the underlying concept that you can't know what you want until you've tried it.

I think that's fundamentally flawed. You really don't have to experience everything to know who you are and what you want out of life. People are different, and some just know without having to sample it all (though it’s also fine to need to try things out first). It's like how you can know your sexual orientation without ever having kissed anyone, or you can know what food you will like at a restaurant you've never been to before. I decided I would study physics before I entered middle school and I have never once regretted it. It is in a similar fashion which I am confident I will still want to be with my fiance years and years from now, despite limited previous experience.

But if you ask most older millennials, apparently that is a huge mistake. This Thought Catalog article has particularly nasty things to say about twentysomethings in love, saying “The only constant is change. The only threat is baggage...Love is checked baggage. Love is freight. If you fall in love too soon, and allow yourself to get in too deep, you have just tied yourself to a freight train track....Twenties' love is what divorces and mid-life crises are made of.” He goes on to say that one shouldn’t even think about marriage until age 30.To me, this seems a rather pessimistic and dogmatic view of things. It's grounded in the belief that a serious relationship is inherently severely limiting of your personal freedom.

This brings me to the crux of what I don't understand in all this advice. Everyone seems to see marriage as the end of the story. Like, once you get married, you are immediately doomed to a boring five to seven decades of suburban monotony. Because once you're married, you obviously can't do any of those adventurous young person things anymore. It totally prevents you from traveling the world, or moving to a new city, or picking up a random hobby, or making new friends, or changing careers, or being a political activist, or cliff diving naked into a hot spring while singing at the top of your lungs.

Wait, I lied. Getting married young doesn't affect your ability to do any of those things. In fact, I'd argue that all of these experiences would be enhanced with the right partner. Because marriage shouldn't be the end of the most exciting part of your life. It should be the beginning of the most meaningful one.

Marriage is just the most obvious example of the various types of commitment that are discouraged for modern 20-somethings. And it’s totally fine to spend the post-college years spontaneously travelling, changing careers on a whim, sleeping around, and not planning more than a few months in the future.

However, I think the people giving that advice don’t realize that lifestyle isn’t for all of us. I spent just a few months living abroad alone and definitely wouldn’t want to repeat the experience, though it was interesting. After a fair amount of time casually dating, I got bored with constantly new but shallow relationships. I’m not spontaneous and I always have a plan, and thus far I have been happy with that. I have been in essence the same person my whole life. I’ve known what career I wanted since middle school. Now, as a college senior/grad student, I have the next ten years roughly planned out, including getting married soon after graduating. Just like I didn’t have doubts when I picked my college major around age 10, I don’t have any doubts now.

So let me say this: use your 20s to explore if you want, but don’t hate me for wanting to turn 30 with more to show for it than fun memories.