I do not

Dear Instagram algorithm,

To whom it may concern,

I’d like to propose a deal. If you remove all the proposals and baby announcements from my feed, specifically from people I knew in high school, I’ll stop reporting the annoying influencers who are making you guys a fortune.

Kind regards, a loyal user.

This year marks my five-year high school reunion. You could not pay me to be within a 100 kilometer radius of that event – even if you showed up with chloroform, a sketchy white van, and a free candy poster. I was on the first flight out after graduation, but most of my classmates stayed behind.

While I’m desperately avoiding the reunion, my peers are gearing up for it. Lucky for them, they’ll have plenty to talk about. They’ll be able to chit-chat about how nearly all of them are either engaged, married, or having kids. They’ll reminisce about the ‘good old days’ and act like it is normal for 22-year-olds to say ‘I do’ before their frontal lobes are even fully developed. 

Meanwhile I’m just testing how long I can leave my wet laundry in the machine before it grows a colony of fungi that starts carrying my socks away. The biggest decision looming over me right now is where I want to do my master’s. My peers back home are committing to forever. FOREVER? I can’t even commit to a coffee date. I can’t even keep a cactus alive, yet they’re raising actual humans. 

I can’t even keep a cactus alive, yet my peers back home are raising actual humans

Every new Instagram post only makes me more jaded and cynical. As another one bites the dust, I can’t stop the wave of nausea when I see #forever. Why is it so hard to believe? It doesn’t directly affect my life, but something about another victim lost to the post nuptials just rubs me the wrong way. 

There is a chasm forming. On the one cliff are places like my hometown, where people are married before they’ve even completed a degree. On the other cliff are places like here, the Netherlands, where marriage seems to be the last thing anyone under 30 is considering. Here, they’re waiting longer and longer, postponing parenthood for PhDs and partners for prosecco tours in Italy.

It is not just a cultural whiplash; the chasm runs much deeper than that. It’s happening all over the world. Maybe it’s small towns versus cities, with political uncertainty in the hot seat again. 

But I’m just happy buying a new cactus every so often, deluding myself that it might survive this time. Send your prayers for my newest victim, Steve.

CARLA ERASMUS

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