One of my best friends got engaged last week. The actual moment was a surprise, but she’s been dating one of my best guy friends since we were seniors in college, so the marriage was inevitable – inevitable and wildly supported among the entire friend group. I could not be happier for this couple. They have an incredible relationship, and we’re all lucky to have them, as a set, in our lives.
There’s my disclaimer. The rest of this post has nothing specifically to do with Matt and Carly as a couple. It has to do with the idea of Matt and Carly as a couple in my life who just got engaged. Stay with it.
There is an inevitable and indescribable “wow, whoa, shit…” that occurs the moment one of your very best friends gets engaged. This – like I say – has little to do with the actual friend. It’s a purely selfish reaction. It’s about assessing where you are versus where they are and feeling one of a dozen or so ways – all of which end in one of those three words – pretty much interchangeably:
- They are engaged, and I’m in a relationships about as a serious as theirs’ so I’m probably going to be engaged soon too…whoa…
- They dated for five years and are just now getting engaged. I haven’t dated someone for more than three months in those same five years…wow…
- I am the same age in the same city with a similar job at this girl and yet I can in no way at all image being ready for marriage…shit…
Are you a tad jealous? Sure. Everyone wants to find someone great and have it work out beautifully. Are you a little worried? Of course. There is no guarantee that just because your friends start to get it all together that you’ll simply follow suit by fate. Is part of you relieved? Yeah, that’s a part of it too. If I had to start saving for a wedding right now a significant amount of things would have to change in my life, and I’m not sure I’m ready to give those things up.
The one-of-my-best-friends-just-got-engaged freak out isn’t about one specific issue. It’s about that over-arching, oh-so-common 20-something issue of “tracking.” Are you tracking with the group at large. Have you sown the oats they’ve sewn, experienced the “growing up things” they’ve experienced, made similar sacrifices to those they’ve made. It’s like if we knew when we were toddlers that we were supposed to roll over and crawl and walk and talk at certain month/year markers. Would we have scanned around the playroom and gone, “shit, another one just went vertical…am I in for it?”
But the difference between your toddler and your 20-something milestones is that the toddler ones actually exist. You should roll over at x months before you crawl at y then hopefully walk at z. You can’t start on solid food without making it through those months of pureed carrots. If you’re outside a certain growth percentile the doctors may put you on a growth hormone.
There is no growth hormone that will get you engaged. Nor is getting engaged or buying your own condo or getting an advanced degree something you need to do at a certain age slash ever. You could be a late bloomer or a never bloomer and that’s still just fine. There is no baby book for the adult section of our lives – no pink cursive ink reading, “Jessie saved X% for retirement today!” for you to fill in the blank.
And so when one of your closest friends – one of the people you feel most “like” in the world rolls then crawls then walks before you’ve so much as sat up straight without toppling over it’s only natural to go hhmm…
This is why we girls – and the guys who admit it – have that mini mental melt-down the second we hang up from the “oh my god we’re engaaaaged!!!” phone call. Yes, for some people it’s because all they want for Christmas is their own diamond ring. And for others it’s that the prospect of marriage is so ridiculous we can’t even fathom our best friends’ going through with it. But for the majority of us it’s just that tiny twinge of, “should I be a lot closer to doing that too?”
Is judging yourself against every other 20-something the fastest way to go insane slash no where? Yes. But is it avoidable – especially when it comes to the major milestones of life? Nope.
Congratulations to my favorite recently engaged couple. My tiny feeling of “whoa” in no way diminishes how WILDLY happy I am for you! XO
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Engagement and marriage has been slightly ruined for me. I got married when I was 18, I’m 21 now, and I am divorced. So now when a friend calls to tell me about their engagement, I cringe out of jealousy because MY special moment went to shit and I can never get it back.
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Great post. I got married this year, the first of my close girlfriends. I’m sure they had similar feelings to you and I think you’d be surprised how many similar feelings I had. Like, “does this mean I’m not the independent, career-focused girl I thought I was?” (which, no, it does not mean). Interesting…
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It’s always nice hearing/reading about other non-engaged ladies.
I’ve been with my guy for almost 6 years, but still don’t see marriage in the cards just yet… Almost all of my girlfriends are married and many are starting to have kids.. and some are already divorced.
My worries are people don’t think our relationship is as strong or committed as theirs just because they’re married and we’re not.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
i keep running into people from middle/high school who are engaged/married/preggers, and as a fellow mid-twenty something, while I’m so happy for them, I’m so…soo….freaked the eff out!
I was JFO’s maid of honor and I still think her wedding was like a dress up game we played with a nice boy named Scott, and a bunch of her family members. Very surreal, but too exciting to not be happy. 🙂
One of my close friends is the first in our group to get engaged. We’re not exactly young . . . the youngest of us is 25 and the oldest is 30, but it’s still a shocker to most of us.