Premature nuptials ruin collegiate bliss

Chris Farah Farah's Faucet

In the last two weeks, I have become privy to some startling information. A few of my closer friends - people my own age, whom I have known and confided in for years - have announced to me that they are, in fact, engaged to be married in the next few months.

First, dearest of friends, allow me to bestow upon you my deepest blessings and most profound congratulations.

Secondly, allow me to say, with all due respect and no offense intended, to hell with the lot of you.

I seem to hear a distinct murmur of disapproval arising from the audience of readers.

Why would this man, you may be asking, curse his friends as they are about to embark on one of life's most epic and trying of journeys? What could be the source of his twisted bitterness and insensitivity?

Of course, I wish only the best for my friends. But at the same time, I make no bones about my own state of mind.

My friends themselves would be the first to say that I am definitely a bitter, bitter man. And the world of long-term relationships has played no small part in my development from a bright-eyed, blond-haired, naively optimistic youth of 10, to the gnarled, crusty, cynical old man I am at 21.

In many areas of life, I have prospered. In many respects, I have no reason or right to complain. But in the pursuit of love, I have been smacked upside the head, again and again.

I don't claim to be unique in this area. In high school, I was one of a large stereotype called "the nice guy." I was not a rebel, and I had no cause. I had no piercings, I wore no leather. If a teacher told me to tuck my shirt in, I tucked it in. No questions asked.

In general, girls don't go for nice guys in high school.

In college, some things change. Some women seem to look at the larger picture - something a little more healthy than a fling with a guy on the seat of his motorcycle.

In fact, one of my engaged friends is a girl I liked in high school who seemed obsessed with the "bad-boy" image. She, of course, is marrying a nice guy.

Unfortunately for myself, high school has left me so bitter that I no longer fit the category of "nice guy," and women who are looking for nice guys now find me too sarcastic and negative for their tastes.

I get a lot of sympathy, but not much else. And so the cycle of bitterness continues.

But lo! What's that breaking through the clouds, but a ray of light - shining on not only my face, but the faces of all those in my situation, male or female.

And the ray of light seeps from one unalterable fact: We're in college, people! As of yet, we've whittled away only about a quarter of our lives. We've experienced very little and seen very few things.

Most of us are changing and developing as individuals at a faster rate than any time since adolescence, when our bodies were coursing with enough hormones, body hair and pimples to officially certify us as strange new exotic members of the animal kingdom.

I personally have been going through enough mood swings recently to qualify me as a piece of playground equipment. And not even that cool old-school playground equipment made out of metal, but that new dura-plastic crap they make so little kids won't cut or strangle themselves.

Here we are, in the prime of our lives, experiencing all these changes, yet some of us are in a rush to get married?

We've heard all the clichés about marriage - the love, the kisses, the cute little babies and the house with a white picket fence in suburbia - but let's get this straight. Let's think about what marriage really is.

Marriage isn't about, "Hey I think I really like this person, and we've been going out for three years, so maybe we should get married. I mean, it seems like the right thing to do ..."

Marriage isn't even about love. Love is a big part of it all, but it takes a lot more than love to be able to stand living with someone for multiple consecutive years on end.

What marriage does entail is a lot of work. And if you mess up, if you get it wrong, it's not the kind of thing where you can just say, "Do over," and all of a sudden you get a new swing at bat.

True, life - not just marriage - is never simple. But very few things in life are as permanent or as potentially stifling as marriage.

By making someone the center of your life, you run the risk of losing many other things that are important to you.

Freedom, for instance.

Right now, before life has taken an unalterable course, we should relish the wide range of options open to us.

If there's any time in our lives when security shouldn't be an issue - when we should be willing to give up a wholesome weekend night of watching a video with our sweetheart for a night of mindless, drunken socialization - this is that time.

At an older age, however, marriage does have its advantages. Noone wants to end up in some depressing old-folks home, lying unattended and ignored in a pool of his or her own filth and urine.

"Change me! Change me!" cries our destitute alter-ego at the ripe (smelling) old age of 82. "Take me for a walk outside ... Please?"

But right now we're young. Most of us have decent bladder control (when sober). Diapers are something from our infancy, not our immediate future. We can take a walk in the park without needing someone to support our arm - or hold our hand.

We should be in a hurry to meet new people and experience everything we can, before we're encumbered by our careers, our goals or our love life.

In other words, we should be trying to get laid, not trying to meet the person with whom we're going to spend the rest of our lives.

And so, when you feel your years at college coming to a close, and you remain without hope of a long-term, permanent relationship that could lead to marriage, don't be worried. Be happy.

After all, if worse comes to worse, there are always mail-order brides (and presumably grooms) from Russia. And what could be better than a mate who's satisfied by nothing more than some decent two-ply toilet paper and food from McDonald's?

To Russia with love, baby.

- Chris Farah can be reached at cjfarah@umich.edu

Author's Clarification: Last week, I erroneously stated that Optimus Prime curses in "Transformers: The Movie." A friend of mine who actually owns the movie on video informed me that it is Ultra Magnus, not Optimus Prime, who swears in the movie.

I apologize for any confusion, emotional trauma or mass hysteria this egregious error may have caused.

10-02-97