I DON’T hear wedding bells.

I feel old. I’m 23, and I feel old. Like ‘burdened with expectations’ old. Not ‘student on a budget’ old.

I’ve reached that point in life, where I know people, who are my age, who are getting married. I also know people who are even older who are either getting married or are already married or have already had kids. At the above same point in my life, I am also asked by these earlier mentioned specimens, ‘So, when’s your wedding?’

Now being the frank and truthful person that I am, my answer is ‘I don’t know!’ This brings me to my next problem. In fact, my main problem. I WILL inevitably receive a sympathetic look. The kind that makes you feel awful about the fact that you are ‘single and in a relationship’ and nowhere close to being married. (I shudder to think what the ‘Look’ would be like, had I been just ‘single’.) The kind that makes you feel you don’t belong there, with them and in their company. The kind that makes you feel like you have to join this sorority or you’ll be shunned from every social gathering. The kind that makes you, the black sheep. The kind that makes you feel guilty about the fact that you’re not engaged or married. Bottom line – I get worked up.

This post is to let these married or soon to be married specimens know some basic facts about me. It is pretty obvious that if these specimens have not been able to comprehend these facts, they are in fact lost in their own world (wherever it is they come from).

I am 23. I am only a MBA student with an educational loan to pay off. I am in no hurry to be hitched, primarily because I have things to do with my OWN life before I am able to tie my life up with someone else. For example, get a job, earn, save, live it up with the money I earn, have perfect teeth, be sure of the fact that I’m in a place where I’m ready to be part of someone else’s life, sky dive, bungee jump, hold a snake without my heart racing fast, be able to ride astride a horse once again with courage, trek, go on a vacation somewhere exotic on my own, take risks, etc. I AM YOUNG! I AM 23!

I HAVE my OWN life. Just because YOU wanted to get tied up to someone else’s life, doesn’t mean I want to do the same. Just because YOU jumped into the well, doesn’t mean I have to as well. You’re NOT part of a sorority I WANT to join.

My answer to the question remains the same. I don’t know when I will be married. I do know I will be someday. When that day comes, I know I would have done most of the things I have wanted to do before I get married. Heck! I may still continue to do those things post wedding. I just want to reach that point in my life without having any regrets. I don’t want to burden my marriage with regrets. It’s not fair to the guy.

So when I know for sure, when my wedding will be, I’ll let you know. Till then, take your sympathy and shove it up your ass. Do something constructive like turn your attention on making your married life better, instead of being a Nosy Parker.

‘Guy whose guts I hate’, I hope you’re reading.

I’ll hear wedding bells eventually. Just, not yet. Till then, I like where I am right now and where my life is taking me.

xoxo

P