The question: “Did you find yourself a boyfriend yet?” comes straight after: “How are you?” when I speak to my grandma over the phone. My dad likes to enlighten me on his family and women views, while I cringe a little inside. My mom has been buying children’s toys for the last two or three years, carefully piling them up in our flat. I don’t have a little brother or sister; they are for her future grandchildren.
While I think it is perfectly fine to marry at any (legal) age as long as that’s what you want, in Ukraine it seems like getting married young is an unwritten nationwide policy and a predetermined part of growing up.
My teenage years were spent in Cyprus and England hanging out with friends, dating occasionally and just enjoying myself, being the outgoing student and the liberal young woman I was. When I returned to Ukraine after university I became an outcast overnight. It turned out that everybody my age is already married or planning their marriage.
A couple of months after returning to Kyiv I went on a Tinder date with a British guy who was studying in Kyiv. There was nothing “datey” about the date in the end: we ended up discussing the difference between Ukrainian and British societies. I shared a lot of my views, shaped by living and studying abroad for eight years, including five years in England.
“I don’t think you’ll survive in Ukraine,” he said to me, impressing me with his ability to weigh up the Ukrainian mentality (an understanding of which he achieved within such a short period of time) and my character. The conversation seemed out of place in a Kyivan pub.
At the time I found it difficult to fully take in his words. I didn’t realize how many times it would eventually strike me how right the British Tinder guy was.
There is even a sequence that I worked out watching people my age: you have a long-term boyfriend/girlfriend during university, you marry him/her straight upon graduation and in a year or two you have your first baby.
If you don’t do that then there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. People will continuously ask you why you’re not married, like it makes you less of a person or undermines your other personal achievements.
While I feel really bad for not making my family happy with just one little thing (or ring), I do not understand why I should conform to this marriage-oriented society. What is the big rush to get married? I’m only 24 and I enjoy being my fun and somewhat egoistic self, socializing and doing what I like. Why should I change my life so drastically just to make others happy?
There is too much pressure put on young women in Ukraine. They are expected to look good, to aspire to family and children. There is even this mysterious popular concept of ‘female happiness,’ which I would be wished every birthday at my previous workplace. I still haven’t fully grasped what it means.
It can feel lonely, I admit. I feel thankful for the invention of Skype and FaceTime so I can keep up and have sanity dates with my friends around the world.
It baffles me because I have so much to offer to this world beside my marital status and dating life. I’ve recently become a journalist, something I have always dreamt about. I have friends across the globe that I hope I will be able to afford to visit more often. There is no doubt I will once enjoy a happy family too, and squeeze my child’s hand before sending him/her to school. But I don’t see why I should be making that a priority now.
