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I had a VISCERAL reaction to seeing the phrase "ring by spring" again. My conservative Christian college campus had the same expression (although we also added "or your money back).
What's interesting is that my college was a liberal arts college and in the same town there was a Bible College and the joke on our campus was that the girls …
I had a VISCERAL reaction to seeing the phrase "ring by spring" again. My conservative Christian college campus had the same expression (although we also added "or your money back).
What's interesting is that my college was a liberal arts college and in the same town there was a Bible College and the joke on our campus was that the girls that went there only went there to get married to a pastor but somehow the guys from the college were always trying to date girls from our school because there couldn't be "two pastor's in the marriage" it's all so crazily fucked up when I think about it.
I was lucky that the majority of my friends out right rejected that narrative but I definitely saw on my periphery girls who I just knew were making a huge mistake. and I just wanted to scream "JUST HAVE SEX! DON'T GET MARRIED!!!"
hahaha, same - I went to small liberal arts Lynchburg College, which is across town from the huge evangelical Liberty University. "Ring by Spring" and "MRS Degree" were just huge tropes that the local newspaper did a front page story on them each year! I was an RA for a semester and hated it because I was consistently dealing with Liberty students coming onto our campus and going crazy over alcohol and girls.
I was an evangelical myself and friends with some women at Liberty and most of them couldn't wait and got married while they were still students! There was a fear that if they waited that it wouldn't happen. One of my close friends who waited until after graduation ended up ending her engagement, but for good reason - her ex-fiancé later came out as gay. At the time I remember being so angry at him, but now I'm glad he was able to embrace who he was after graduation (once he was out of the Liberty bubble) before they tied the knot.
I was with my husband for three and a half years before we married, which in the evangelical world was an eternity. Funny enough, I ended up becoming a Unitarian Universalist, where everyone was shocked that we married so quickly, lol!
If you had told 18 year old me that I would be 34 and single I would have been shocked. I just expected that while I probably wouldn't get married in college or right after college that I would at least meet my future my husband in college. I'm so glad I didn't just "settle". I would tell my 18 year old self how happy you can be at 34 and not married...believe it or not 🤣
100% same. That whole thread of educational regrets a while ago? Mine was 100% I focused on the wrong things in college (desperation to find "the one" being chief of my mistakes)
Yep! Upon graduation I felt like such a failure because I didn't meet my husband in college (I ended up meeting him less than a year later). I remember my evangelical friends being concerned because I was a stronger Christian than him, but thank God he was more "basic" because he has been there for me through my ex-vangelical journey. My 18 year old self would have been shocked and so upset at 34 year old non-Christian me and how much healthier I am without the toxic theology.