Let’s not kid ourselves – we came to college with plenty more hopes than just an education and a decent chance of finding a job someday.
Students have loads of excellent social, academic and extracurricular opportunities thrown at them, but as school continues, they demand even more. Students expect their college friends to stick throughout their lives and tend to develop the na’ve expectation of finding a life partner at the university.
Many students feel pressured to find “”the one”” they are supposed to marry in college. “”
Because of the way society is today, a lot of people go into college expecting to meet someone, so a part of me had that expectation (when college began),”” said sophomore Dyanna Gehm. My own older brother met his wife in their dorm during the first week of his freshman year, and stories like his can give the impression to others that they will miss the boat if they don’t find their soul mate in college. Marrying someone from college is not unheard of, but attending under the assumption that you’ll come out with a spouse is a silly and unreasonable belief.
The life of a university student is balanced by self-creation and sometimes destructive mistakes, so in many ways it’s unrealistic for students to be capable of preparing for marriage if they don’t even know who they are yet. As students mature and grow into their adult personalities, they learn from trial and error. No one has their life together yet, and when it comes down to it, college is the only acceptable place for people to act as ridiculous and careless as possible for four years without being judged or held accountable for their irresponsibility, because they are “”college students, and those years don’t count.”” With nights of too much drinking, failing classes and physical signs of rapid aging as a result of bad habits, many are at their worst in college – and what’s the point of seeking out future partners while they are still getting immaturity out of their system, anyway?
Of course, there are benefits for the students who just happen to meet their spouses without expecting to in college. In “”Tidbits on Raising Children,”” author and University of Hawaii professor Loren G. Yamamoto supports the idea of marrying someone you meet in your classes.
“”Would it be preferable to meet your spouse on a college campus or at a night club? Going to college increases the likelihood that your spouse will also be a college graduate.”” What Yamamoto fails to mention is that many college students are more likely to make it to a club on a Friday night than to an 8 a.m. Tuesday lecture. She also overlooks the obvious fact that the world is kind of a big place and that it’s possible to meet a spouse anywhere, especially in the work force where the employees are college graduates as well, and are generally far more in control of their lives than they were in college.
A lot of students believe that possessing similar interests can stimulate and better a relationship, and attending the same college reflects the same wants and needs for each college couple. College, however, is not the only place to find someone to relate to, and often couples leave college as changed people and no longer share the same beliefs and similarities that they did while in school. At universities like our own where there are students representative of all 50 states, students are likely to scatter back to wherever they came from after graduation, and college couples have trouble holding onto their relationships if one person does not want to move where the other does.
For those who truly do meet the love of their life in college, that’s fantastic and good for you. You are killing two birds with one stone. To those who don’t – no need to sit around and complain that you haven’t met Mr. Right and that you’re being cheated out of a fairy tale romance. You’re here to learn above all else. I know you may feel ripped off of the thousands you’re spending on tuition each year, but those fees do not cover a marriage service. There are countless other opportunities to meet prospective wives or husbands, so don’t rush to get it over with. Set aside your unconstructive worries over matrimony and finish your homework.
Laura Donovan is a creative writing sophomore. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
