Saturday, March 5, 2011

That Most Wonderful Time in Life...PSYCH!

As I sit here on a Saturday morning, fully rested after sleeping in, sipping coffee out of my Christmas mug from Deva, and yes, still in my pajamas, I feel quite content and satisfied with life. Which is why it's the perfect time for me to complain! Or, as I prefer to call it: question the great wide void why things are the way they are. It's much more diplomatic, no?

So my question to the void today is: what's up with this new age group people are talking about? Have you heard of it? It's US. Post-adolescent, pre-adult, post-college, pre-career people. AKA the 22-28 ish age range. Apparently we are not growing up in the same way that our parents did (duh.) We are delaying families, marriage and even careers to "discover ourselves" and "find out what we want in life." Well, that's all well and fine I suppose, except for the fact that this seems to apply more to males than females. Ahhh, yes, now you see where this is going. My dear friend Courtney sent me an article titled "Where Have The Good Men Gone?" The main premise is that while women are off fending for themselves (aka having an income and getting educated), men feel less needed and in response have become whiney and immature. Ha! Just kidding, kind of. It's not that harsh. But it does point out that many guys these days seem to live in an extension of the frat life, riding out the high of college, refusing to settle into adulthood, etc.

Now, as a recent graduate, I can't say I'm exempt from this lifestyle. I still sometimes wish I could go back and re-live senior year again. But ultimately, I would like to have kids before I'm 40, so I realize I must move onward. Unfortunately, I cannot have said kids unless someone from the male population steps up and contributes to the cause, so to speak. (Disclaimer: this is NOT a blog post begging for a boyfriend. Yuck. I'm just using myself as an example. I'm sure many girls feel this way.) And according to the article, as long as I keep finding ways to occupy myself in the meantime - like working and going to school - guys will be turned off by my "independence" and revert to video games and binge drinking. Or something like that.

I feel like this is getting convoluted, what do you think? My main point is this: there is some strange and unstoppable cycle happening here. Girls want to get married. Apparently you can't just do that out of the blue. So they get jobs. Guys see girls with jobs. Guys feel they aren't needed to bring home the bacon. Guys are content to let sleeping dogs lie. Girls get impatient. Girls climb the corporate ladder. Guys feel even less needed. Guys get insecure about their role in a girl's life. Girls get kinda whiney about the lack of guys. Guys are turned off by said whining. Girls and guys resent each other resulting in the lack of relationships and the world's population of married couples drops dramatically resulting in fewer children birthed by young mothers and by the time people finally let go of their grudges and have kids they are old and will not live to see their children graduate from college and then the world will be full of a generation of hurt and clueless 20-somethings who are in dire need of the wisdom of their parents and in turn run away from any type of relationship or commitment... See?? CYCLICAL.

I realize this entire blog post is a vast generality, but I think there are a few truths in there somewhere. The hard part is extricating those parts from my ranting. Questioning, rather. I suppose in the end, the most important thing is that whatever you decide to do with this most wonderful time in your life, do it with sparkle and style of your own. And don't shy away from being a grown-up every once in a while. :)

2 comments:

  1. what i got out of this post was that, the reason why people aren't getting married is because it's all the girls fault. AMEN!

    ...and this article agrees with me: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcmillan/why-youre-not-married_b_822088.html

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  2. I agree with the generality part ;)

    but I think people have always struggled with the career vs family. Even when people choose something, they always have doubts about their choices... and nowadays it's socially acceptable to postpone these things or flat out choose career...

    It's definitely a selfish move, in my opinion, (to not handle relationships that lead to families) but we're told we can do and be anything - so why not try? Especially when love is so hard...

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