Column:

Stereotypes unfairly judge everyone

By Andrea Fuhrer

Published Sept. 11, 2008

This past summer, following my freshman year of college, my boyfriend of two and a half years asked me to marry him. And I said yes.

Committing to one person for the rest of your life is a pretty big deal and I've always envisioned the entire experience of getting engaged as being one of the best times of my life. So far it has been everything that I hoped for. The proposal was adorable, our families are supportive and I'm now sporting a gorgeous ring on my left hand.

However, there is one element that I hadn't really anticipated about my engagement: scrutiny.

Almost every time I have been congratulated on my recent engagement, I've felt like my relationship and I are being judged. Over and over I've heard, "You're so young," "Why the rush?" and "You're waiting until after college though, right?" Even when it wasn't expressed in words, I could hear the subtle disapproving tone hidden in people's commendations.

I felt awkward, I felt hurt and I was made to feel like I had something to be ashamed of. All of this because I'm 19 years old - not 22, 25 or 30. All of this because I'm in college and not holding down a full-time job. All of this because I don't fit the qualifications that other people have set for being ready to get married.

I agree that I'm in a unique situation. Right now most people my age aren't even thinking about marriage. It might be six or seven years before they're walking down the aisle. Despite that, it's still frustrating to be judged for going against the social norm.

As human beings, we unfairly judge people around us every single day, and every one of us is guilty of it. I know I am. It has become the social norm to pursue higher education, so when the kid you knew in high school drops out of college you assume he partied too hard and failed his classes. You don't consider that maybe he didn't have the finances to finish his degree, or that maybe he was offered the job of his dreams already.

When that girl you sat next to in class gets pregnant, you assume she's careless, that she has "loose morals," that she gets around. But that situation probably could have happened just as easily to any one of your friends, or maybe even you to yourself, so who are you to judge?

When you see someone wearing a shirt emblazoned with Greek letters, you instantly lump them into a stereotype based on their fraternity or sorority. Slutty, alcoholics, boring, gay...you decide how you feel about them based on a label that probably stems from what a select group of people in their chapter did 20 years ago. Fair?

And in 2008, when you hear that two college sophomores just got engaged, you assume, "Maybe she's pregnant?" You assume they're making a big mistake. You assume they're probably giving up on their big dreams and settling for something less.

Or maybe they're just lucky they don't have to look any longer to find the person they want to share the rest of their lives with.