The Wake

I find that our relationships often parallel other aspects of our lives. Just as teenagers and early twenty-somethings change rapidly as people, their romantic needs are apt to change as well.

A student myself on the cusp of graduation, I feel glad I had a largely single college experience. As I now reflect, snow falling and John Coltrane playing, I realize the single life kept me free to grow personally and socially during these four years. A single graduate is not tied down and will travel when offered that perfect job in some random part of the country.

Some college students are still forming their adult personalities and fundamental ideas. Others have finished this process in the not-so-distant past. With the temptation to latch on to someone permanently comes the uncertainty of what changes the future may bring.

We are bombarded with cultural images of marriage as an obligatory sign of success. This can hide the realities of divorce that can follow early-onset marriages.

Married or seriously dating college students do not fully capture the image benefits. They may just look unseasoned to the world of dating, and also uncritical of other areas of life.

Our televised culture regularly reminds us that, in order to appear successful and balanced, we need to be in a happy marriage. We visualize glossy Hollywood celebrity photos of smiles and holding hands as a way of showing balance and emotional stability.

This holds some truth later in life, but the image of a married college student is more like that of a high-school kid starting a family. It looks more like an inability to delay gratification than a solid grasp on life.

When young people get engaged, it almost shows a certain degree of insecurity, as if to suggest college students who are serious daters are unsure whether they will have future chances to tie the knot.

The image of a successful college student is one who feels utterly certain that things will work out and there will be a happy marriage waiting somewhere past the cap-and-gown ceremony.

This student feels passionate about his or her life’s work, and with this passion in place, the romantic passion of acquiring a spouse is relegated to a co-supportive role instead of a co-dependent role.

Couples who reach this state of maturity before exchanging vows can strengthen each other as individuals, instead of fulfilling emotional needs for acceptance. Do you need each other, or thrive on each other?

College dating can also be an avoidance tactic. Campus life is filled with important social activities and events that couples often fail to attend.

Even when they go out with friends, they miss out on the experience of mixing platonically with the student body the way singles do. We should spend a good part of youth meeting and mixing, with all the importance that singles attach to these rituals.

It seems like college-aged women enjoy the freedom to step out of their long-term ties more than men do. This could be because the men are more casual about it.

But regardless the reason, men who learn not to seek security in dating can actually win that kind of serious attention.

Sure, becoming engaged prematurely is kind of like choosing the wrong major before your academic life has reached that point. But such things often move in tandem as well.

All relationships, no matter how short-lasting, are intense learning experiences. We learn about ourselves, our abilities and our partners. But as we do this, other areas of life tend to move in parallel.

Someone who changes partners frequently may be at a stage in life when academic needs, jobs, mindsets or other things are changing as well.

At any rate, generalities do not apply to any particular couple. People simply know when they absolutely need to get married. When that certainty arises and no other options seem acceptable, make the only clear choice by picking up that ring.

If you are at that point, disregard anything that has been packaged in the form of rational argument and inked down in these pages of the Wake. You have stumbled upon something far more profound than what can be put into words.