Vinay Menon: Millie Bobby Brown is just 19, too young for the Stranger Things of marriage

Advice for Millie Bobby Brown: enjoy a long engagement.

It seems the 19-year-old actor is getting married. I write “seems” because she did not explicitly say, “I’m getting married.” Instead, she posted a cryptic black-and-white photo on Instagram this week. Boyfriend Jake Bongiovi, 20, is hugging her from behind. Two matching grins, four eyes closed tight in soul mate bliss.

Ms. Brown is wearing a diamond ring that if, I had to guess, cost more than the total production budget for a season of “Stranger Things.” Her caption: “I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, I want ’em all.”

That’s a Taylor Swift lyric. At the risk of angering volatile Swifties — it’s happened to me before and it is highly unpleasant — I must reluctantly suggest that quoting a T-Swizzle song is maybe not the best omen for everlasting love.

But this dispatch is not about Taylor Swift, or how she botches emphasis by putting commas around the wrong word. That lyric would be much stronger as: “I’ve loved you three summers, honey, now I want ’em all.”

This is why I adore Lana Del Rey. Her commas are exquisite.

Back to Millie Bobby Brown and today’s question: Is 19 too young for marriage?

The short answer: it depends on the person. Brown is precocious and blessed with preternatural talent. She has an old soul. Plus, having Jon Bon Jovi as your future father-in-law means that, should the relationship ever veer sideways, he could grab an acoustic guitar and slow-belt a therapeutic rendition of “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

But I’d still argue 19 is too young for holy matrimony.

This argument is based on celebrity cautionary tales of puppy love past.

A couple of years ago, Elle Australia published a story about stars who married young. Show of hands: Who can name Kim Kardashian’s first husband? It wasn’t Kanye. It was music producer Damon Thomas, whom she married in 2000 when she was 19.

Three years later, they took a bullet train to Splitsville.

Olivia Wilde was also 19 when she married Italian filmmaker Tao Ruspoli. It didn’t take. Drew Barrymore was also 19 when she married Jeremy Thomas. It lasted — wait for it — 19 days. (Numerologists need to figure out why 19 is so unlucky in love.)

Until then, why is anyone, celebrity or otherwise, rushing into marriage?

If your prefrontal cortex is not fully developed — and it does not mature until your mid-20s — you owe it to yourself to focus on yourself.

Marriage is not like “Stranger Things.” There are no superpowers. But if you don’t use your power to be super to your partner, you will find yourself in a scary Upside Down, a parallel universe where resentment, grievance and regret manifest as a Demogorgon, Mind Flayer and Vecna.

According to that Elle story, Macaulay Culkin and Rachel Miner wed when they were 18. They were single again by 22. Janet Jackson and James DeBarge eloped when she was 18. Annulment came knocking a year later. Yes. Media stories about the accidental cameo of Janet’s nipple at the Super Bowl lasted longer than her wedding vows.

So Millie Bobby Brown? Take your Millie Bobby Brown time. There is no reason to rush into wedlock. You are young. The world is your oyster. Premature marriage can be a shell. In real life, the true Stranger Things are how we all change, especially between the ages of 19 and 30. You will hardly recognize yourself a decade from now.

I fell for my wife when we were in high school. We got married at 29. And if you jabbed her neck with a syringe of truth serum, she might say even that was too soon.

Teenage love is not a romantic sundial — it a time bomb.

“Romeo and Juliet” was a tragedy.

Now, obviously, a marriage can fail at any age. Just ask Rupert Murdoch. But the cautionary tales from showbiz prove it is wise to wait as long as possible before saying, “I do.” At 19, you are not yet you.

And not-you is a terrible springboard into us.

In reporting this week’s engagement, People returned to the past: “Before her relationship with Bongiovi, Brown was notably linked to TikTok star Hunter Ecimovic — which she later recounted as an ‘unhealthy situation.’ In a live video in 2021, Ecimovic — who has since removed himself from social media — said he’d ‘groomed’ Brown while she was underage …”

Eesh. And all the more reason Brown should continue “healing,” a word she used in an Allure cover story this fall while also saying: “I felt very vulnerable. Also, no one on the set knew I was going through this. So it was kind of nice to be able to just deal with that myself and no one else knew. Then it was harder when the whole world knew.”

That’s the problem. Now the whole world knows she’s engaged.

I have no doubt these two are madly in love. In the little I know about Jake Bongiovi, it’s obvious he is no Hunter Ecimovic. So keep dating. Live together. Move forward in your careers. Figure out what makes you tick as individuals before you synchronize clocks for the Big Day. Defuse the time bomb.

“I absolutely have made wrong decisions,” Millie Bobby Brown told Allure.

Getting married too young would be another one.

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