Sometimes just going with your gut is good enough

Back in 2004-2005, everyone was asking me why I wasn't trying to buy a house of my own. My response? "I can't afford a mortgage AND furniture. I can only do one or the other." I wasn't trying to be pithy or cute, that was my honest-to-goodness reason. I knew everyone else with income like mine was buying, but I just didn't feel comfortable with it, and that was good enough reason for me. No further explanation needed. I'll spare you the history lesson of what happened with the housing market and people like me who decided to buy a house anyway.

So here we are in 2010 and the pressure is on, but for a different reason: "So when are you and BF getting married/moving in together?" My response? "When the job/housing market allows us to." No one seems satisfied with that response. The look I usually get seems to say, "Well that really shouldn't stop you." And for some people, it doesn't. And they end up in a lot of debt and/or unemployed because of it. Right now we both have a roof over our heads and jobs. Neither one of us have any interest in putting ourselves in financial harm to satisfy people we neither know nor like. I'm sure it seems strange to people on the outside of our relationship to be long-distance for two, projecting into three or so years. But we're doing what feels right for us with the information we know right now. No further explanation needed.