Opening Facebook in December, especially between Christmas and New Years, can be hard for a single woman. Just when she thinks she’s caught up on the latest engagement announcements, one glance at her News Feed can prove her all wrong.

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This year, within the month of December alone, Facebook informed me of ten engagements. Yes, you read correctly: ten. Ten different stories starting with the words, “He took me to [fill in the blank] and surprised me with [fill in the blank]. Ten different rings featured and tagged in ten different Facebook photo albums. Ten different Facebook statuses originally proclaiming, “He liked it and he put a ring on it!”

And my favorite, ten different instances in which I get to remind my boyfriend of my diamond-less finger.

Honestly, I’m not bitter. I’m confident that someday my time will come. In the meantime, I’m trying to fully appreciate and enjoy my life even if my time doesn’t come. But it is interesting how many of my acquaintances are getting engaged at a young age. It’s a contrast with what I see in my line of work where independent, middle-aged, career women seem fearful to take such a leap. It’s these women who have warned me, countless times, about the perils of marrying too soon.

This isn’t my first exposure to young, engaged couples. I graduated from a small, Christian college where engagement announcements are as common as Oprah starting a new diet. There are many theories about the reasons behind this phenomenon, also known as “Ring by Spring” or the “Christian Meat Market.” Some believe that Christian culture values marriage so much that young people are conditioned to search for ideal mates. Christian Meat Markets colleges provide a suitable environment in which to search for a compatible partner who, conveniently, also loves Jesus. The end result, in many cases, is marriage. Others believe that several young Christians allow their horny-ness to get the best of them. Subsequently, rather than succumbing to the pleasure of premarital sex, they decide to get married in order to avoid God’s smite.

Personally I’m not sure which of these theories I ascribe to, if any. I tend to believe that because of the unique nature of relationships, it’s difficult to make generalizations about them. I am, however, willing to do an examination of my own relationship-an examination in which I don’t feel pulled into different directions. Between the buzz of engagement announcements on Facebook and independent, middle-aged, career women encouraging me to “make the most of my twenties,” it is quite often that I feel torn between what I think I’m supposed to want and what I actually want.

When I think about what I actually want, I realize that a healthy balance between a marriage and a career will fit my life pretty well a few years from now. I’m positive that I’m not ready to take the plunge into wedded bliss just as much as I’m positive that I want to come home to a husband and children after work someday. I must say I’m feeling pretty good about this realization because it helps me put my desire to be engaged into perspective. I’m only guessing, but it’s probably better to be content about the direction of my own love life than distracted by the direction of others’. So here’s to engagements, careers, children, and independence. I hope to one day experience each of these rites of passage with equal excitement. My hope is that you can find encouragement as well, no matter where you’re at in your journey.

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