A Younger Generation's Perspective

Since the wedding, a lot of discussions about marriage, relationships, men, and women have come up amongst my family and friends. I am the bride's youngest sister, only 19 but the wedding has just sparked so many thoughts about my own decisions as well as my friends'.

I have friends whose siblings are either already married or are approaching that stage in their lives. When people around you start getting married... You take notice. I will definitely say that it makes me feel old (something I am sure many of you will laugh at). Anyway, out of all my female friends I am one of few that is actually in a relationship. Amongst my close friends, I am the only one in a relationship. Now this is totally fine, there is nothing wrong with choosing to be single for whatever reason one may have. I just believe that some girls have slightly different perspectives from me of love, relationships, and timing.

A few of my friends insist that this is WAY too early to be thinking about "settling down" or being serious with someone. "We're just 19," they continuously say (one of them actually turned 20 yesterday). "I'll wait 'til senior year around graduation for all of that," they repeat. And I think to myself for a mere split second, "Hmm are we really too young?"

But in that moment, I realize that perhaps they view "settling down" in a different way than I do. I have been with my boyfriend for about nine months now, we met in college and quickly became best friends... We fell in love very unexpectedly by the end of my freshman year. And after being in a long distance relationship with him for these past nine months, I do not anticipate dating anyone else. In essence, I am not going anywhere. But I am also not getting married tomorrow and I think that may be the way my friends view it sometimes. Not literally of course, but perhaps they somehow equate a commitment now to an even larger one that may or may not happen further down the road.

Of course that is truly the reason for relationships in the first place, but a relationship is what you make it really. Whether or not marriage is in your future (near or distant as well) is essentially up to you. I understand my friends at home and at school when they say they want to just take college to continue to be a free spirit or experience things, etc. But I also know that most of them aspire to someday fall in love, get married, have children... The whole shabang. And I always tell them that there is no better place to meet someone than college.

At what other point in your life will you be presented with so many people from a number of diverse backgrounds who can pursue numerous opportunities? College is the place of dreamers. Nothing seems out of your reach and absolutely anything is still possible. People love college students, they admire us with our tenacity, inspiration, and determination. This is the place where we begin molding ourselves for who and where we want to be in life.

I think that was part of what attracted me so much to my boyfriend, he just has a passion for life like no other I have ever seen before. And while so many other college students are out being free spirits, I am developing into the person I want to be and learning about the person I know I truly am. And they will see some day that when they find someone they believe to be special... They will not want to be a free spirit anymore. They will have no reason to date other guys and no interest in them either.

I suppose writing this has helped me realize something: Everyone is at different point in their lives. Though we are all sophomores in college, we all are experiencing different feelings, revelations, and lessons all at the same time. Everyone is not ready to be in a serious relationship, not until they are more sure about who they want themselves to be can they be sure about who they want to share their lives with.

All I want them to realize is that by senior year of undergrad and in grad school, a lot of those guys that are eligible bachelors now... May not be then. My sister (The Bride) once told me that if you find a good black man that makes you happy and has his stuff together, hold on to him. I think she was very right.