Planning

Having the "singles mindset" is something brand new to me again. For so long I never thought about how it must be being single right now. And then I began to do some research. Do you realize that chances of a woman getting married drop by over 80% when you become a doctor? I still haven't yet figured out what the statistics are for having a family of your own, but I imagine that they are much less, especially if you want to be a surgeon. So, I did the silly thing of thinking about family planning.

If I want to take my time meeting someone and developing a stable relationship where I could see a future with them, I figured it would take about 1.5-3 years. Then being engaged, planning a wedding would take about 1 year. Finishing school, getting established in mine and his careers 4 years, then (maybe) children (4 years to be completely done). Therefore if I want to have children before I am 32 I would have had to have started this process two years ago. Well, so much for plans right?

I was talking to one of my dearest friends D. this afternoon. I noticed that he seemed really pensive and distant. When I asked him what was wrong, he blurted out that he was ready to date. I didn't quite understand the dilemma so I preyed further. He apparently did not plan on dating anyone in medical school. When he applied, the last thing on his mind was any sort of relationship and he strongly expressed that his career came first and a family and personal life would come in second. I am not about to sit here and analyze his logic because an entirely different blog could be devoted to that. Well, back to the story, D. was upset. He was upset that something he wasn't planning for hit him so unexpectedly. I wonder what it was in him that changed. What happened so suddenly that he was ready to go against his plan. Maybe it wasn't anything in particular, maybe you can just change in an instant. He wasn't ready to be interested in someone and he wasn't ready to share so much of his time with anyone else, but the bug bit him and there he was, somewhere he didn't want to be.

I couldn't help but think how similar yet different our feelings were. Here we were, two people who because our personal feelings and lives were somewhere we didn't want to be... single. In my case, I was not single by choice and had no desire to be. In his case, he was single by choice and was upset over his decisions. I can't help but wonder how many people out there are unsatisfied with their current relationship status. Better yet and probably more interesting, how many people out there are truly happy. What a disappointment it would be if the former was greater than the latter.