If you live in Utah or have lived in Utah you'll understand what I mean completely by this post.

So i found out yesterday one of my good online friends (we've been friends since 2004) is engaged, Congrats to Nikki or Kole (on the forum) i'll make it to Arizona one of these days and we'll celebrate your engagement .

It really got me to thinking and made me realize how much pressure I've been feeling and i'm under right now to either be in a relationship/engaged/married. This is where the first line of this post comes in, If you've ever lived in Utah or live in Utah you know how big of a religious state it is, even if your not from Utah you probably know that Utah is the Mormon state. In Utah it's kind of an expectation that once you finish high school you start dating, get engaged and then married usually within 9 or so months of dating that person. Girls are usually married when they are 18-19, where as guys usually don't get married until they are 20-21 because it's expected that they'll go on their mission and then get married.

I'm 24 and single, all of my friends in Utah are 24-25, married and have kids with an exception I have a friend who's engaged but she can't get married until her fiancé gets his kidney transplant (has something to do with SSI). Recently I've been feeling the pressure to get married by my friends even though they aren't doing it purposely, they've been doing it. I tell them i'll get married when i'm ready, but in reality i'm not married because I feel i'm still too young to get married, I have so much I still want to do before I get married. Then I think of i'm starting to get older i'm going to be 25 this year and that maybe I should think about settling down soon, my goal was always to get married at 27 as to me that's the perfect age and by that time i'll be done with school.