Last week my Facebook timeline exploded with friends sharing a link called “Marriage Isn’t for You” by Seth Smith. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you do and you can find it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-adam-smith/marriage-isnt-for-you_b_4209837.html.
Smith’s overall message is that marriage isn’t for you, it’s for others. No true relationship of love is for you. Love is about the person you love.
This week’s featured couple is James and Carolyn (Messman) Pfeifer. James graduated in 2009 with his BA and Carolyn was an undergrad for pharmacy school from 2006 to 2009. James was kind enough to give me a detailed account of how they met and some great advice for students that was too perfect to edit. Here is the story of James and Carolyn, from James himself.
“In the fall of 2006, we were both wide-eyed freshmen in our first semester at Creighton, sitting on opposite edges of Dr. Murray’s Intro to Philosophy class. We spent the entire semester eying each other from across the hall, but neither of us had the guts to break the ice. Our first introduction came at a second semester date party; we talked and exchanged numbers and started hanging out regularly.
“Over the next two semesters, we spent a lot of time together and became good friends, building upon our shared tastes in music and movies, and our mutual appreciation for the pizza at Becker. We attended parties and concerts together, and both landed jobs at the Urban Outfitters down the street.
“After several months of ‘will-they-or-won’t-they’ speculation, we finally pulled the trigger and started dating in the spring of our sophomore year. After junior year, Carolyn relocated to South Carolina to begin pharmacy school. I joined her a few months later, graduating a semester early. We dated for two-and-a-half years before getting engaged in the fall of 2010. We were married eight months later in a small ceremony at a plantation outside of Charleston, S.C. We have been happily married for two-and-a half years.
“Advice for Creighton Students looking for love: If you have a certain somebody that you’re eyeing from across the lecture hall … go talk to them already! You may be wasting valuable time that you could otherwise be spending smushing faces in the Jesuit Gardens.
“Worst case scenario: they turn you down flat, but you learn a little something about yourself, and you move on to the next potential candidate. Best case scenario: You get married and grow old together in a real-life adaptation of a Disney movie.”
A huge thank you to James for sharing and be sure to pick up next week’s issue and look for the fourth and final piece of the “CU Couples Show That There’s Hope For Us Yet” series.