By Angela Blue

“You’ve been together how long?! And you’re not even engaged?”

My boyfriend and I get this question a lot, and we know how to handle it. I usually laugh it off; he makes a joke about never wanting to get married. Awkward silence between the two of us and the nosey inquirer. Then it’s dropped.

This time, however, was different. It was coming from a complete stranger at a bar who was drunkenly yelling from a couple seats down. She’d just discovered we were a couple and was in complete awe that he hadn’t proposed to me after nearly six years of dating.

“What’s holding you back?” she slurred to my boyfriend as he searched for the right words to silence the intoxicated mess glaring at him. Her eyes were desperately searching for some excuse for why he was taking so long, some reason as to why we were blatantly defying the rituals of life and mankind.  He just shrugged.

Then I realized my eyes were also searching him for something. I was waiting for some kind of explanation or even a glimpse of hope that he might be popping the question soon. “What’s wrong with him?” I thought to myself. And then immediately afterward, “What’s wrong with me? Is there something about me that’s so undesirable that he doesn’t want to marry me?”

I sat on my barstool and had a personal pity party. I began thinking of all my Facebook friends from high school that were married. Some even have kids already.

I thought about all the times my long distance relatives had picked up my hand and said, “No ring yet, huh?” Then some others who would say, “I was already married at your age, you know.”

Luckily this last thought brought me back to reality. Dating and marriage has changed in the last 60 years. The reasoning for getting hitched was somewhat different back then. True, the ultimate decision to get married was based on love, but lots of couples opted to have children almost immediately.

Living situations were different too. Usually a woman would live at her parents’ house until she got married and then she moved in with her husband. There was no shacking up with boyfriends or living with college roommates. Who needs college anyway when you’re going to be staying at home all day taking care of the kids?

I feel that life was a lot simpler and wholesome back then, but I don’t know that I would go back in time just to get a quick proposal. I’m happy right now living with my boyfriend and our two other roommates.  Society has pressured us to get married because we’ve dated for a while, but there are other factors that I hadn’t considered about getting married and having kids.

I just graduated college and definitely don’t have enough money saved up for a wedding, let alone a baby. Plus there are so many things I want to do before I become a parent such as traveling, starting a career, even planting a garden. Not to be selfish, but babies require lots of money and time, and I want to spoil myself before I spoil someone else.

Right then a phone call interrupted my thoughts. “My sister’s having her baby,” my boyfriend said with a big grin. I squealed at the exciting news, which reminded me to take my birth control pill that I chased with a kamikaze shooter. “Couldn’t do that if I was pregnant,” I thought to myself. We toasted to his sister and her soon-to-be little bundle of joy. I didn’t feel jealous or wonder when my time would come. I was truly happy for her and happy for me too.