This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Columbia Barnard chapter.
Does this glass slipper have a lifetime warranty
for happiness, financial security, a balanced social
life and an enriching career? I’d like to see the receipt, please.
Maybe it’s the ubiquity of dating apps (I see you, J-Swipe) or because I want flashier jewelry (SPACE JEWELRY), but I have marriage on the brain. Not in the dreamy fairytale “I want to get married to my eternal soul mate” way since a friend recently rationalized, “If I am ready to get married, I should be ready to get divorced”. Or even hypercritically–and we Barnard bookworms can spend hours tearing down the social construct of marriage, equal marriage erroneously supplanting equal rights, the idea that a person “needs” a partner to be “complete”, satisficing etc. I just want to know why instead of working on my thesis or doing something mildly productive, I feel compelled to search for “available princes” (true story, this happened).
In “The Game of Life”, a game-imitates-life series of trials and tribulations, career decisions may allow you special benefits and salaries, but in the end, don’t we all just end up at Countryside Acres with a significant other? (Note: when playing Life, I NEVER take the college route– student debt is a real setback, man).
So not the drama.
College has prepared us to think about professional careers and the irrational goal of saving the world one paradigm shift at a time (re: Kim Possible, Athena Scholar). Still, (there’s gotta be) more to life. After a 2013 Princeton leadership conference quickly diverged from professional trajectories to personal friendships, The Princeton Mom noted, “At your core, you know that there are other things you need that nobody is addressing. A lifelong friend is one of them.”
So I’m not marriage crazy, I’m just afraid of being lonely after college. Fair enough.
Princeton Mom’s a venti-half-crap latte overfloweth. Hold the artificial sweetener, the quote continues: “Finding the right man to marry is another”. She reasons, since we will never be in an environment with such a large concentration of intellectual equals, we should grab a man and hang on tight. Go ahead and tear that one apart (snaps if you said “Ivy exceptionalism”).
Regardless of where we go after graduation, this undergraduate environment will never be ours again, so what are we left with?
“Syphillus” – Gauguin
This question is the crux of our pre post-graduate anxiety. As the academic foundation fades away, will the relationships we forged be substantial enough to stand on their own? Will our memories be enough? Whom will we forget? Who will forget us? If we don’t come out of these four years with some tangible connection, then what the hell were we doing?
Does this glass slipper have a lifetime warranty for happiness, financial security, a balanced social life and an enriching career? I’d like to see the receipt, please.
A partner isn’t a panacea, although I’m certainly not advocating for couples to split after graduation (this isn’t the summer of your senior year in high school). Whether we leave Barnard with or without a significant other, we will encounter overwhelming amounts of uncertainty that challenge us for better and for worse. Most importantly, contrary to popular belief, college isn’t a hard close. I’m looking forward to the day where we don’t have to make small talk about our majors and dorm assignments, but we don’t have to leave Barnard knowing exactly who we are or want to be. The lasting effects of college will present and change themselves with time. With that in mind, I don’t feel nearly as bad skipping the ball (aka getting crunk at Senior Night) and getting cozy with Netflix.
*image via couplescounselingchicago.net (so fitting)