Just Do It*

Back in the dark ages when I was still working at The Restaurant, we had a college girl working in the office with us for the summer. She was 18 going on 12 (for real - petite AND young looking/sounding). She spent most of the summer coming in to work exhausted after staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning talking on the phone with her boyfriend in Hawaii.

She talked about him all the time, too. See, they had been dating since the beginning of fall semester and plans were in the works for him to get together with her family so he could ask her father's permission to marry her. (don't even get me started on that whole asking permission thing...) When her family came to visit, she and her mom went window shopping for wedding dresses. They even had their honeymoon all planned out.

Now I remember my boyfriend from my college freshman year. I remember the puppy love. I remember wanting to spend every single second together. And I distinctly remember not even once seriously consider marrying him. I asked her once why they were in such a hurry, and her answer shocked me:

Well, because we're Mormon, we can't have premarital sex. So Mormons marry pretty young... because they want to have sex.

I'll be honest: I understand and strongly respect the moral choice to "save yourself" until you find your one true love. But I disagree with any religion that is so strict with its young people that they feel the only way to act on their natural impulses is to hurriedly commit themselves for an entire lifetime just to get on with the "getting on."

Perhaps my young co-worker was especially immature (or horny). But her parents were active participants in the marriage plans, which I believe means they support her decision to marry young. At any rate, we all got an e-mail from her last week saying that they are engaged now and plan to marry next summer.

Congratulations, kid. But I really hope you spend the next 11 months really getting to know each other and asking the tough questions. Are your career goals in line? Where will you live? Will you have kids? Buy a house? Spend your spare money on vacations or save for retirement? Anticipating that one day with the white dress, the party (where you're still not old enough to toast with anything harder than sparkling apple cider), and then "90 seconds in Heaven" for that long will only, in my opinion, lead to a lifetime of disappointment.

But don't worry, no matter how disappointing your first time is - and it will be disappointing - the sex will definitely get better!

*I agree, it was the best post title ever!