Today I was sitting next to two other college students, a man and woman. They started talking about future plans, the kind of vague dreams everyone has about five and ten years from now. The man said that the one thing he knew for sure was in ten years, he wanted to be married. "Actually," he corrected himself, "I want to be married in eight years, by the time I'm 30." The woman asked him why that was. If it was for the emotional connection or for finances, and the man responded, "Both, really." After some thought, though, he settled on the emotional connection being more important.

This guy is definitely not alone in his reasoning. Everyone has plans and dreams, and sometimes that means getting married. But putting a date on it? A timeframe?

Why?

I think college is a lonelier time than a lot of people will admit, so they get to thinking, "Well I can stomach being alone like this X number of years." X is just going to be some arbitrary milestone. Other people start seeing their friends graduate and drift apart. Chances are it happened with high-school friends, only now, after college, you're never going to be forced to sit next to someone roughly your age who could turn into a friend, ever again. If you're really lucky, you'll find some fun coworkers, but, when people start going away, marriage seems like a way to "lock down" at least one person. Maybe a few, if you get together with more couples.

All that seems really sad to me.

There is a certain poetry to everyone being lonely and bonding over that, but does that mean that everyone needs to find their partner before 30? Really common relationship advice is "Work on yourself before looking for someone else". I don't think anyone takes that seriously enough. There's another quote by Bill Burr that I love.

I love this quote because of the soul-crushing picture it paints, yet it's not hard to imagine at all. Putting a time frame on getting married implies it's "a thing to do". Adults are married, so I should be too. That is so very wrong. Marriage and relationships should never, ever be something that is holding you back. "Well, I'd feel really happy/accomplished/complete if I could just get married." is the most destructive thing you could ever think. By believing that, you're giving up on being happy with yourself and being okay with needing someone else to tell you you've done a good job. Love means not needing someone, but wanting them anyway. I've fallen in the trap before. I've thought I was in love, but when it came down to it, I wasn't a complete person before I got in a relationship, so everyone suffered. Love should be a hand to pull you up when you fall, not the only thing that stops you from falling in the first place. So, to the guy who wants to be married in eight and all others like him, take a step back and live your own life. Love, relationships, and marriage are not things on a checklist that are just prerequisities to living a fulfulling life. We all have to learn how to love being alone before we can love anyone else.