The idea of ring by spring was an entirely new concept for me when I started my freshman year at Union.
It was a difficult concept to grasp because I had grown up being taught that when the right time for love happened, I would know.
I quickly learned that the concept of “ring by spring” is more complicated than just putting a time limit on love.
It is a deeply embedded idea that if a person graduates college without being engaged, or at least being in a serious relationship, he somehow would be a failure.
The idea of being a failure because of not being engaged by the end of college seems like it contradicts one of the fundamental ideals of Christianity: everything happens in God’s time.
I would imagine that attending a Christian university should decrease those feelings, but it seems as though they are heightened.
I distinctly remember a faculty member speaking at orientation my freshman year, telling us to look around because we might be sitting next to our future spouse.
My three years at Union have been filled with experiences like that. Finding your spouse in college is something that is often joked about, but there seems to be an underlying tone of seriousness.
Couples immediately break off during Focus weekend at the beginning of students’ freshman year, and jokes about marriage and even real engagement shortly follow.
At Union, hanging out with a member of the opposite sex leads to people assuming that you are dating.
It is pressure of relationships that we don’t need in college.
Classes, jobs, tests, roommates and homework already account for more than enough reasons for stress.
A relationship is something that should be fun and should provide a break from the everyday monotony of college — not something that is stressed over or something to be stressed that we don’t have.
Putting a time limit on love adds too much pressure to something that should otherwise be an easy thing to figure out. Now, that’s not to say that the time is never going to be right in your early 20s.
Everything happens in its own time. If the time is right as an undergraduate, that’s great. If the time is right later in life, that’s great, too. Relationships should be allowed to progress organically.
Instead of being discouraged about not finding “the one” in our early 20s, we should be empowered.
It is the time in your life when you can be the most selfish.
Selfish is a word that generally has a negative connotation, but selfishness in the sense of loving yourself shouldn’t be bad. Before marriage, you can do so many things that would be more difficult or impossible with a spouse.
You can travel where you want to, accept any opportunity that comes your way anywhere you could imagine, form friendships that could last a lifetime or even just focus on self-improvement.
According to US News & World Report’s college ranking profiles, Union University has an undergraduate enrollment of 59 percent female and 41percent male. This means some of us women are going to be out of luck.
On the bright side, we live in a world full of opportunities that we wont experience until we graduate college. There are more fish in the sea than in the tiny pond of Union University.
Rebecca is junior public relations major.
