Utah girls, listen up! You aren't in college for your MRS degree

By Emma Tippetts

November 30, 3005 | We see it in fairy tales, in television sitcoms and in just about every Disney movie we allow into our homes. The goal of any woman is to fall in love, get married and make babies.

Mention marriage, and you can get almost any single girl to blush and immediately a thought bubble will pop above her head depicting a white picket fence and a tall, dark and handsome man playing with the children in the yard. The obsession with falling in love and creating fairy tales is taking over America, more specifically Utah.

Girls in Utah focus their lives on this goal alone. It is something they work toward, center on, live life according to, and spend all time, energy and thought focused on.

This obsession is ruining the lives of young ambitious women. I had a friend in high school who was willing to do whatever it took to find a man, fall in love, and be together forever. Rather than studying for a test she would be trying to get her hair color to look just right. Instead of spending time with her girlfriends she would be sneaking out at night to spend the night with the man of the week.

Because of this fixation she ended up having an abortion, two miscarriages, and giving birth to dead twins on prom night.

When I came to college I thought girls would grow up and realize what was important. I thought by nature they would be older, on a path to success and self-achievement towards ambitious goals of gaining a college education and making a difference in the world.

I was wrong.

My first roommate was married and divorced before the end of our second year of school. To this day I'm still not sure whether or not she has passed any of her classes.

My second roommate spends time online looking for wedding rings rather than research, although she is still trying to find the right man because she has spent too much time thinking all the wrong ones could've been the one.

It happens over and over again. Girls are wasting precious time in their lives searching for their prince charming. Inevitably this tactic always leads them to finding all the wrong ones and continues a vicious cycle.

But for some reason, this ailment pertains mostly to the female majority. You will never walk into a male apartment and hear things like, "Well, what else am I going to do if I don't get married?" or, "Class was so pointless today, I didn't meet anyone even worth marrying," or my personal favorite, "I'm only here to get married and get out, that's the main reason people go to college, isn't it?"

Men don't spend time in a physics class practicing a signature with a new last name or deciding on what spelling of Michael will best suit their first child.

Because of this, I have taken it upon myself to advise the female population.

Lesson No. 1. Stop waiting. Stop looking. Get up and do something with yourself. Who wants to date a girl who responds with "oh, just waiting," each time she is asked what she has been up to lately? If you spend all your time looking for something, you'll never find it. It is not the "dear hunt." Relish in the fact that this is one thing in life you don't have to go out and find on your own. Live life to the fullest and he will come.

Lesson No. 2. Be self-reliant. Don't use men as a crutch. That is not what they are there for. Men will not make everything better, they do not make life perfect, and they do not come with a guarantee to give you the life you want. Men do not exist to make women happy; women have to do that on their own.

Lesson No. 3. If it's broken, don't fix it. A break-up does not mean your eternal companion is walking out the door. Get up and move on. Keep your emotions at bay and treat the situation as an adult, learn something from it. If it doesn't work, leave it alone and walk away, don't turn back time and time again to see if, "maybe this time it will work." It won't.

Lesson No. 4. Get an education and use it. Men don't want to talk about shoes and clothes and how stupid your roommates are. Use the time you have to educate yourself in the adult world so that once you enter it you have more to talk about than the weather and the newest celebrity gossip you caught on the latest edition of Entertainment Tonight.

Lesson No. 5. Above all, love yourself before you love someone else. A man will not make you feel better about yourself forever. That is your job. Men do not come equipped with the ability to read minds, act perfect, say the right thing or do exactly what you want and you can't expect them to. You have to have enough control over your own life and your own emotions that by the time that perfect guy comes along, you shouldn't be a mess he has to clean up. Men aren't good at cleaning anyway.

There is more to life than love. Love is an incredible part of life that usually comes at unplanned times, makes you feel like nothing else can and provides you with more than you can provide yourself. But girls, you don't need to work so hard to find a husband. They are not hidden in some cult somewhere that only appears when you've found their secret spot.

Stop looking, focus on your life, your personal goals, making you a better you; and the perfect man will come when you least expect him.

NW
MS