22 Things You Could Be Doing With Your Life Besides Getting Married

Starting a blog and, despite having an average daily readership of three people including your mother, maintaining and growing it with love.

By Chelsea Fagan

Updated 12 years ago, October 28, 2012

Though I am all for the concept of marriage and support fully anyone who wants to engage in it themselves (in the sanctity of a church and/or plastered all over Facebook), it can sometimes feel — particularly as a woman — as though your accomplishments don’t amount to much if no one is in the process of putting a ring on it. Here, 22 awesome things you could very well be doing instead of walking down the aisle.

1. Getting an advanced degree in something that has been your passion for as long as you can remember (even if it is Princess Fairy Astronaut Mermaid).

2. Traveling the world and meeting amazing new people (and occasionally getting drunk/sleeping with them, but as it is international, it clearly doesn’t count).

3. Dating various people in your city and having lots of small flings because you want to really take your time to find the right person to settle down with, and you just haven’t clicked to that extent with anyone yet.

4. Taking up a hobby and finding out that you love it enough to start pursuing it as a career on the side.

5. Making adorable crap shaped like kittens and tiny whales and selling it on Etsy.

6. Starting a blog and, despite having an average daily readership of three people including your mother, maintaining and growing it with love.

7. Not even considering being in a romantic relationship because you are simply having too much fun being young and not having to worry about anyone but yourself.

8. Going on road trips with your friends and taking a picture making the duck face (ironically, of course) in front of every monument you pass.

9. Starting a serious (and somewhat costly) love affair with reading, and with the general feel and smell of books in your hand.

10. Having tons of mind-blowing sex with whomever your precious little heart/genitals desire.

11. Learning how to cook and, despite not knowing how to properly boil water at the start, finding yourself able to make some pretty complex recipes.

12. Having dinner parties because you are classy and like to get white wine drunk.

13. Couch surfing and meeting crazy, awesome, fun new people who only ~30 percent of the time smell like bong water.

14. Flipping a house (which seems like a sweet way to make money, but who actually has the time to lay shingles oneself?).

15. Watching every Disney movie in chronological order.

16. Getting back in touch with old friends you’d almost forgotten about and realizing how a change in time or location can do wonders to highlight everything that you always loved about each other but may have taken for granted because of familiarity.

17. Crying over the fact that you will never bone Tom Hardy.

18. Getting really into shape for no reason other than you want to wake up every morning with a lot of energy and feel incredibly good in your own skin.

19. Spending more time with your parents, because they are awesome and give you free food and compliments.

20. Acquiring a pet and bestowing upon it all of the love that you may have otherwise wasted upon an actual human being.

21. Going through an “espresso” phase where you get really obsessed with proper tamping technique and sun-or-shade grown.

22. Doing exactly what you want and not being even the slightest bit concerned with whether or not anyone thinks you’re hitting your milestones at the “right” moments.