Boston University junior Randy Pinion met University of Tennessee sophomore Arika Dean in high school gym class. The couple, engaged after Pinion’s freshman year in the College of Communication, have stuck it out despite a nearly 1,000-mile separation.
Unlike many high school sweethearts who end their relationships in college, Dean and Pinion manage to stay together with semiannual visits and regular phone calls. When the going gets tough, Pinion said he looks to Dean’s childhood Hello Kitty doll — a gift she gave him before he left for summer camp in high school, the first time they were apart.
While American marriage trends show men and women have been getting married later in life — the average age of first marriage was 26.2 in 2003, compared to 21.5 in 1953 — Pinion and Dean are among the shrinking population of people in their early 20s who are trading in bachelorhood for a walk down the aisle.
“[The distance] doesn’t bug us because we love each other,” said Pinion, who plans to wed Dean in fall 2010, after they have both graduated.
“My motto is every relationship ends in one of two ways: you break up or you get married,” he said. “So I try to avoid dating people I can’t see spending the rest of my life with.”
BU psychology professor David Shim said in the past people got married and had children younger for economic reasons, while today’s “academic route” is more conducive to settling down later in life.
While Pinion said he was never a casual dater, School of Management junior Patty Curbelo said she took advantage of the college social scene before getting engaged last December to her boyfriend of one and a half years, former Berklee School of Music student Scott LaJoie.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Curbelo said. “Sometimes I even forget he’s my fiance and not my boyfriend.”
Although the couple has yet to set a wedding date, Curbelo said she is moving into LaJoie’s Cambridge apartment next fall.
“The living situation will be different,” she said. “I think it will tough at first. He’s kind of messy, and I’m extremely clean, but I’m at his place nearly every night. It’ll be a smooth transition.”
Curbelo said she wants to graduate and get settled into her job before she can even think about the wedding itself.
“I just want to get my life on track in case things don’t work out,” she said. “You have to be prepared and need a plan to fall back.”
While some believe age affects the likelihood of a marriage’s survival, Shim said good communication can lead to “mature love” regardless of age.
“At some level you have to spend some time with someone before you get to know them,” Shim said. “It’s important to have dating time, then living-together time. Then you decide whether [marriage] is right for you. People need to sit down, communicate and realize their values; so love is less about passion and more about companionship.”
While the survival rate for couples who marry young is significantly lower than for those who say their vows later in life, Shim said he believes marriage failure is tied to poor communication, not age.
“Some young couples are very smart and some old couples are very stupid,” he said. “[A relationship] is one of those things you have to talk through [and] work at together, one person can’t do all the work.”
