As we go through the fast-paced years of our college lives, we are growing into our adulthood. On a personal level, I can’t help but notice how many girls around me are now wearing sparkling diamond rings on that famous finger on their left hands.

It makes me anticipate and dream of that magical day when my Prince Charming may come along and take me away to his beautiful castle, two-carat princess-cut diamond ring in hand.

Do these feelings of anxiousness make me abnormal? Of course not. In the past couple months, several of my female friends have also started giving more thought to the idea of engagement and marriage. Yet it is safe to say that many of our boyfriends hardly think of engagement, let alone marriage.

As a matter of fact, if mentioned, conversation would surely turn to something closer to the topic of football and ultimate fighting.

To avoid stereotyping and to verify this idea that women want to get engaged and married sooner than do men, I asked 15 females and 15 males when their ideal ages to get engaged and married would be. All of these people were within the ages of 18 and 24. The results showed that the average age women want to be engaged is 24, and their ideal marriage age is 25. Men were looking to wait a bit longer with an engagement age average of 26 and a marriage age of 28.

Why are women are so excited to run down the aisle to the man they love, while men still want to stumble home from the bars with their buddies? Are women in love with being in love or are we simply playing the role that has been set aside for us since womankind was created?

Obviously, not all women operate this way. Just like the “I” before “e,” except after “c” rule, there are exceptions to everything. I am trying, however, to focus on the majority.

I believe women are taught from birth that one of their biggest goals is to bag a man.

Look at the books we read and the movies we see when we are young. So many of those stories have a princess who falls deeply in love with a prince charming and lives happily ever after.

I strongly feel that women are conditioned to feel they are supposed to get married by a certain age. Men are taught to be strong, play sports and earn a living.

The difference in how girls and boys are raised is means enough to understand why girls are planning their weddings at 15, and boys are just playing the field.

Another reason women are more eager to wed could be biological. Anyone hear the saying about a woman’s biological clock ticking? As women, we do have a sort of timer going inside of us. We only have a certain number of years before we can no longer reproduce. Men, as we all know, never stop being capable of procreating. Perhaps, this reality is subconsciously clicking away in the back of our minds.

Both of those reasons are perfectly viable explanations. Yet understanding hardly is a cure for the female obsession with the perfect man, perfect proposal, perfect diamond ring and perfect wedding dress.

Sadly, we will keep playing it out in our minds, living vicariously through the girls next to us in class who are lucky enough to already have shiny rocks on their ring fingers. That is, until the day we finally find our perfect princes to whisk us away just like we first saw with Cinderella so many years ago.

Amber Siwicki is an opinion columnist for the Northern Star.