How are you doing? What are you up to now? What is next?
Once those socially acceptable, non-prying, safe questions are answered, and the ice that had formed from whenever we last saw each other has been broken, most people tend to feel comfortable enough to ask about...my personal life.
While these conversations about my "love" life have always been present with my closest confidantes, in this past year, I have been asked about my romantic prospects in a greater frequency than I have ever experienced before.
Someone even asked me, "Are you going to get married before we die?"
While that is quite morbid, I understand their impatience.
At the same time, I must admit I am not actively trying to meet their expectations (sorry).
There are multiple people I know who are my age from my school-years and even college who have gotten engaged in the past year and/or said yes to the dress just in time to have a summer wedding post-graduation.
Props to them.
I admire them and if I am being completely honest their actions also scare me. Probably because social conditioning has led me to believe certain ages are more suitable for certain steps in life. I definitely had the thought scrolling through Instagram: didn't we turn 20 two days ago (read: two years)?
I closely know people who are in relationships from a few months to a few years. Some will be in a long-distance relationship for the foreseeable future. Some will be making their next move together. Others are staying in the same city, but have decided not to live together until they are both working and have graduated.
In my casual chats about relationships and marriage with friends and family, I quickly realized that marriage is not the only future being considered.
Cohabitation.
Long engagements with marriage in the (very) distant future.
Marriage, but only with a prenup.
So we're all on the same page here are the definitions I used to distinguish:
Cohabitation: A living arrangement in which an unmarried couple lives together in a long-term relationship that resembles a marriage.
Engagement: the state of being engaged (pledged to be married : betrothed)
Prenuptial agreement: an agreement made between two people before marrying that establishes rights to property and support in the event of divorce or death
These types of conversations were already happening before the pandemic, but I do think the lockdowns catalyzed us to further evaluate the concept of the nuclear family and explore other forms of relationships that could achieve the same goals.
From the Atlantic and the Nation to the Washington Post and the New York Times, the early pandemic days saw numerous publications surrounding the nuclear family.
Here are some of the headlines:
The Atlantic (13-Feb-2020) By: Joe Pinsker
