It is safe to say that the most exciting news of my life was announced just nine days ago!

It’s something I have been waiting for a long time to happen and finally a tweet from the Associated Press sent my world in a tailspin.

Jennifer Aniston is engaged, people!

I know it may seem stupid, but Jen (and yes, I call her Jen) has always been someone that I looked up to. Yeah, her romantic history is longer than and documented more than Erica Kane’s, but she wasn’t anything less than poised. She is America’s Princess Di. Some people called her jilted, others called her unlucky in love. I call her amazing—nothing short of saintly.

To me, Jen is like wine (I’m legal now, y’all) and only gets better with age. She is the Renaissance woman.

And while I choose to live my life vicariously through the world’s best “Friend,” I can’t help, but wonder why it took the 43-year old actress to find “true love” with screenwriter Justin Theroux? And is marriage really that important?

Besides watching countless hours of the “Say Yes to the Dress” series and “Snapped,” I haven’t really thought about marriage. Maybe it’s because I am single…or maybe it’s because I spent way too much time reading comics, watching TV and taking care of my Giga Pet growing up to “plan” my fantasy wedding.

I am not exactly sure when little girls start playing wedding, but I think I was roleplaying “Dragonball Z” with my friends.

I think a big thing I found was that people seem to be settling for what they want…they settle for a job because the economy is bad, they settle for a house and car, but I don’t think people should settle for who they are presumably going to spend the rest of their life with.

I believe in the sanctity of marriage but not in getting married just to get married.

If women would spend as much time picking out their husband, wife, partner or whatever as they spent picking out their dress—I don’t think we would be having the high divorce rate now.

I admit that in my 20s I feel a bit jaded.

With everything I am learning about different cultural and historical eras, I’m not sure if I necessarily believe in having one soul mate.

What is the likelihood that in a planet filled of 6 billion people that you would be so inclined to find that one person in the same town let alone the same continent as you? Very unlikely.

I think we have multiple soul mates that we meet throughout our life that change the course of our life.

When I enrolled at Eastern, I thought I was going to be a social worker and then I met my soul mates for the time being—the staff of The Daily Eastern News.

So for now I have a huge list of soul mates—and I’m OK with that.

Nike Ogunbodede is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].