Ring by Spring is a phenomenon sweeping college campuses nationwide. Senior girls are showing off their new engagement rings to their squealing yet admiring classmates. Ring by Spring is defined as the mass quantity of seniors scurrying to get engaged by spring quarter (or the end of spring quarter at the latest).
Like you haven’t.
OK, I anticipate you haven’t, but your classmates have. But before you go around performing a “ring check” on every girl around campus as if you were Nancy Drew, make sure you know what you are looking for. Public Service Announcement: Engagement rings are exclusively worn on the ring finger of the left hand, never on the ring finger of the right hand. One day last quarter, I innocently wore a ring on my right hand. A curious yet clueless guy performed his own “ring check” on me. Party foul. I informed him where engagement rings are worn and I probably saved his chance at future happiness. Isn’t that sweet?
Historically, Ring by Spring has swept mostly Christian college campuses. Now? Not so much. Too many girls around the nation in nondenominational colleges claim they only enrolled in college to get an MRS degree. You guessed correctly: to find suitable husbands and never use their degrees. Better yet, some girls initially pick a major predominately populated by potential husbands (like Industrial Technology or Mechanical Engineering) and then drop the major just so they increase their chances of meeting a guy.
Point, please? I cannot exactly figure out the allure of this phenomena. Let’s be serious for a second. I am far from being the same person I was in high school. Therefore, four years from now, I will be a different person than I am today. Subsequently, the fiancé will be a different person than he is today. We live in a bubble when we go to college. Danger! And you wonder why so many marriages end in divorce. Why rush? You have the rest of your life to be married.
The smart ones put their money on a quasi Ring by Spring object: the promise ring. It’s the compromise of the college commitment debate. It’s like saying that you and your boyfriend are serious but aren’t quite “there” yet. You will simply factor the other “in” when making your post-graduation plans. Not a bad option, I guess.
My friend Jenny just graduated from Bowling Green State University. After graduation, she was checking out Facebook and so many relationship status sections of her friends’ updated profiles were changed to “engaged.” Really? While we think it’s remarkable that you found Mr. Right so young, we feel like Ring by Spring is so restraining. The ring is like a symbol of an unspoken border that gets put up between you and the rest of your single classmates. Are you still going to have girls’ nights or be young and irresponsible with friends like the unengaged?
And maybe it’s just me. Maybe I see this phenomenon from the perspective of my Carrie Bradshaw-esque self. I’m not in a rush and neither are most of my friends. But one day, Carrie will settle down with Mr. Big. Perhaps, while I see the couples I know will last, I see some whose chances are less favorable. I understand the fear of going into the real world. You want someone to take that step with you. And as Ricky Martin once said, nobody wants to be lonely. But the bottom line is: What’s the rush? When your time comes, just make sure you accept nothing less than two carats.
“…The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.” — Sex and the City
Emily Smith is a senior marketing major. Send her your proposals at es303004@ohiou.edu.
Reader Comments
This is pathetic.
I don't have a problem with someone getting engaged young per se, but women making it their first priority in life at age 21--and making a contest out of it--is puke-worthy.
Getting that old MRS degree, eh? Way to trivialize the second more important thing you'll ever do! Oi.
*second most
Incidentally, Sex and the City does not qualify as a source of inspirational quotes. Try reading Kahlil Gibran or the Desiderata sometime.
Curiosity, I'm unsure what you mean. Are you saying getting married is the second most important thing you'll ever do? If you are, I have a list of questions, assumptions, and hilarious demonstrations of my cutting wit.
It IS the second-most important after having kids. At least in my mind. That's why you shouldn't spend your early 20s trying to beg a ring out of the first guy who comes along.
I notice there's no pressure on men to run out and find someone to give a ring to. Can we say desperate? Have some standards, women.
Okay, good, someone clarifed, so I can rant. Give me a second (breathes deeply, as if savoring the moment). Here we go.
Marriage as the second most important thing? Ummm... on who's list? I may not have high hopes for my life, but if I achieve half of my goals, marriage will be pushed to number 18, at the highest. If I manage to work my way on the list of possible post-Conan Late Night hosts, down to the lower (upper?) forties. I've never understood the fascination with marriage. Sure, I'll do it, if I find a willing woman (a Herculean task, I might add). But I just don't see why peoplebase their lives around it.
By the way, as to where I put "having kids" on my list of accomplishments: if I find myself adding another couple of people to the population in an ultimately futile attempt to validate my own existence, that's it. My life sucked.
Beat me to it, Herzog!
It's about priorities. Some people consider family a priority. Some, careers. Others, pure hedonistic enjoyment. I consider marriage the 2nd most important thing (next to children) because that is when you attempt to complete yourself, as well as having the honor of completing someone else. It allows you to find that true, meaningful love that is at the core of human emotion and desire.
No one should base their lives around getting married. It's a means, not an end. Making marriage 2nd on the list isn't about the institution of marriage; it's about the connection and the person to whom you decide to bare your soul (don't begrudge me for using "soul"... it's a metaphor).
I find myself skipping over this column more and more each day...
I have never heard of this phenominon in my life. And I'm damn glad. What the hell, today's young women?
I second Curiosity and Herzog... so I guess that's a third...
Is it just me or is the whole "like you haven't" thing really starting to get old and annoying? No one here has, at all for that matter, except for the hot professor story, and that was only one half of your readership... ok, maybe like 61% if we include the gay readership, but still, 60 some odd percent on one column does not make a basis for a column based week to week on something that we've all supposedly done, because none of us have... EVER!
No one wished they were a Buckeye, no one wanted to go after 40-50 year old women (just the though of that is disgusting actually), no one here wished the were a Buckeye the SECOND time you mentioned it in that half-assed backhanded apology that really wasn't one at all and no one has been desperate to get an engagement ring before graduating.
Maybe you should start writing columns with the themes: Make and ass of yourself in front of thousands of people, Attempt to sleep with someone near your age, make an ass of yourself in front of thousands of people a second time while trying to make it appear like your apologizing without actually doing it, Being responsible about who you're going to spend the rest of your life with since the divorce rate in the US is near 50%. Because ALL OF THOSE THINGS I'VE ACTUALLY DONE! So when you said, "Like you haven't" you'd actually have me there because I had!
God, I used the two punctuation marks I get for life in this one comment... I hate you even more now...
Here, Here. Time to put the "Like You Haven't" shtick to bed.
I think it is odd that all of these columns have a common theme of "like you haven't", yet I find that I never relate to any of them. Who exactly is the "you" in "like you haven't"? I'm not sure one exists.
Yeah, when did the whole catchphrase thing start in column writing? As little as a year ago, the column's title was either an obscure reference or a vague theme, now it's a punchline? Kinda like switching from "Here's your sign" to "Git er... you know what, I don't wanna type it, but you know what I mean.
Well, Locke, it probably started at the time editors started, in many cases, handing columns to hacks, not journalists. A hack relies on crutches like this; I doubt you'd be able to find evidence that the nation's best columnists, today or ever, used the same phrase in every column. Maybe it's just me, though, and I'm wrong. Like you haven't ever been. And this just in: Carrie Bradshaw is a fictional character, not a journalistic role model. Nearly as ridiculous as someone wanting to get into broadcast journalism because of the work of Kent Brockman or Tom Tucker.
I have heard of this phenomenon, but not in the present day. I thought it had gone the way of "getting pinned" or wearing someone's class ring. I had a few friends who got engaged during my time at OU, but it was because it was the right time for them and their partner, not because of any misguided competition.
Honestly, I find this column insulting and poorly written. Ms. Smith makes sweeping generalizations without any statistical basis, in the process relying on antiquated ideas. (The "MRS degree" - really?) I suppose in her mind women couldn't possibly choose stereotypically male majors because that's what interests them.
Of all the seniors i know, I do not know ONE that is in a serious rush to get married. I agree with OU02. For some its convenient. NO I'm not engaged but i know like TWO couples who are....for them it was the RIGHT time. I'm starting to think you don't have a soul...you hate our school...and you put down women from like the 50s. This article really isn't really relevant to today. I agree with herzog that women who are actually SEARCHING for someone to marry..its pathetic. But honestly I really don't know any women who are here for their "MRS." YOu must have been watching Monalisa Smile with Julia Roberts when you wrote this and thought thought hmm I want to be JUST like julia roberts....guess what, that movie is supposed to have taken place in the 50s and I'm almost positive its 2008.
Submit a comment to The Post