Recently, I've been talking to different people about relationships and how long couples should be together before they experience the next milestones of their relationship together and what they say surprises me. It seems that society likes to pass judgements on couples who 'move too quickly'. Most of us believe in love at first sight, but when someone actually experiences it and wants to tie the knot at an 'early' time in a relationship, we gossip to each other about it. If two people are in a relationship for years on end, they're judged because they haven't settled down yet.

Oh, you've only been together for a few months? You guys don't know each other well enough yet to make things more serious. Just wait until you get out of the honeymoon phase. We need to stop telling people how long they are dating before they know everything about another person. Different people open up at different times. Yes, some people take a few years to completely open up and become themselves in a relationships, but others may only take a few weeks.

You've been together for three years, are you two ever going to make a commitment? Maybe they're struggling with money and they're trying to make ends meet instead of focusing on saving for a ring they can't afford. Maybe they're trying to get through college and get a good job before they decide to settle down with someone else. It could be that some people take a long time to make decisions and they want to make sure they're completely ready for marriage before they change their lives.

You're only 22 years old, you don't know what love is. The people who make these comments are just fighting love themselves. They don't know how you both feel or how you are with each other. A lot of those older couples saying that have probably been married for a long time and they most likely met at that age, too. They probably don't realize how quickly you've grown up and they can't fathom that you've grown up so quickly.

You just broke up with him/her a few weeks ago, take your time moving on. Why are there set time constraints between relationships? Why do you have to be broken up for a set amount of time before you move on and meet someone new? Everyone gets over people at a different rate of time. If they know what they want and they're ready to go after it, why stop them?

You haven't dated anyone for a while, don't you think you should go out with him/her? Like I said earlier, every takes a different amount of time to get over their last significant other. It could take them a few months, or even a few years. Let them take their time and stop pushing them to date someone new.

Every couple moves at different rates with relationship milestones and society needs to understand that. When couples have been together for a few months and already think they're ready to move to the next step in their relationship, why do we judge them if we believe in love at first sight? When couples have been dating for years on end and are waiting to take the next step, why do we rush them into taking a huge leap? It seems that no matter how long you've been with someone, society isn't happy. We need to understand that everyone takes a different amount of time to open up, to make decisions, and to move on.