I thought I would spend this evening writing something a little more personal. If you can relate to this I would love to know.
I’m 27 years of age. Soon to be 28. In my world this means all my friends are in long-term relationships, getting married and planning, if not already delivering, human beings. I’m in a long-term relationship too and I’m pretty happy, by my standards that is, and clearly not by everyone else’s.
The pressure to get married or just do something that would indicate i’m ‘growing-up’ is intense. INTENSE I tell you.
I can’t go a week without someone asking me when my boyfriend and I will get married. Will we have kids? Are we going to buy a house? Why aren’t we ‘moving forward’?
Moving forward towards what exactly? Forward to meeting the standards that society sets for us? When it comes to marriage, I guess my parents were a little different because I never really had any schooling from them in the ‘standards of society’ department, so all I know is i’m apparently doing something wrong and definitely missing everyone else’s deadlines.
Let me just set the scene a little. I used to live in Singapore where I worked as a food and travel writer, among other things, and now I split my time between London & Kuala Lumpur and run my own fashion label. Again, among other things.
image via Pintrest
In the eyes of my parents.. let’s just say they are still waiting for me to make them proud and go back to a stable 9 - 5 where the majority of my life will be spent at the same desk every day and the rest of it getting to and from that desk. They would never directly say it, but i’m sure that would make them feel much more secure. But on the marriage front they've never even asked.
My friends can handle the fact that I don't have the same kind of jobs most of them do, the elephant in the room is usually the marriage part. When it's discussed they say I will come round. They think that i’m running away from life’s responsibilities and are waiting for me to get a reality check. Most of them anyway. The ones that never left our hometown in particular. I think once you move away somewhere, anywhere, your perspective on the whole of life drastically changes. And gaining perspective isn't always a blessing..
image via Pintrest
I enjoy being with my partner and I don’t find a need to get married because: I don’t have the money to throw a party for everyone I know, I’m not religious and most importantly actually it’s something i’ve never wanted or really considered. I always dreamt of having a house by the sea, not a diamond on my left hand, second finger from the right. And is it really so strange to have different dreams? To want to spend your money on traveling the world and uncovering as much of this beautiful planet as possible, as opposed to on marriage and children? Sure you can have both, but what if I only want to make the former my sole priority?
Luckily I have found a partner who thinks the same way as me.
People say it’s because i’m young and my mind will change when I get older. I’ve now been hearing that for over twenty years. And now I am older. Or do they mean older still?
Never say never. I believe that now because it’s too limiting. You never know what is around the corner and how the world might change your persecutive in some way. So i’m not saying I will never get married, but I am saying that at the moment this is not something that is important to me and with my life as it is and what I have planned for myself, I can’t ever imagine it being important to me.
Children? I haven’t made up my mind yet, but for now it’s a no. I’ve got a hell of a lot of things to do before i’m 30 and the list gets bigger every day. I’ll get back to you on that when i’m 31.
So yes, I don’t plan on getting married but I do plan on moving to California or New York, traveling South Africa and South America, setting up my own manufacturing team in India, learning Hindi, doing a Nutrition course and so much more within the next 5 years.
If that makes me strange then i’ll take that.
If you're not married and don't intend on being, i'd love to hear your thoughts on this one!
Yasmine