I’m 24 and curious about the dating life after 30

14 comments

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2. TLDR: Find someone sooner than later, my friend. I’d recommend between 25-29. Most people are going to have a fully developed frontal lobe by then and know what they want.

   For me, it has been worse. Dating in my 30s, I just keep thinking about the statistics of finding someone I’ll mesh with. I feel most relationship-stable folks have already found someone. Coincidence that I started dating someone three weeks ago and it has been going well. But for the 6+ years before now, I would not have many positive things to say about it. The dating sites/apps are saturated. Too easy to discount. Too many options. Not enough filters. Not enough willingness to meet up in-person to see if there’s chemistry beyond manicured messages. To answer your specific questions, from my experience: some are serious. Some are not. Saying what you want is a personality style. I wouldn’t say girls in their 30s say what they want, but I have noticed more so as I’ve gotten older that girls will say what they don’t want. Which, for me, is a turn off. When someone on Hinge would say “You should not go out with me if…” or “Non-negotiables for me are…” — sure, it’s conveying something. But I am a fan of telling me what you do like as opposed to what you don’t. And my way of thinking is I don’t want to discount someone completely for something like they smoke. My impulse is to say no smokers. But if I clicked with someone and felt understood and had chemistry and blah blah blah — if they smoke two cigarettes a day, or maybe even twenty, I can compromise. I find a lot of females aren’t willing to compromise in their 30s. Which seems like more of a statistical move you’d want to apply to dating in your 20s. As you get older, I feel you have to get better at compromising. Which I also relate to maturing in-general.

3. I’m married, but from what I can tell from my friends, how well you do totally depends on your station in life. *Generally speaking*, and yes I know this is Reddit and ppl will chime in here with their anecdotal exceptions, it seems like women are a lot more serious about settling down and not looking for superficial relationships.

   What this means is things like what level of education you have, what job you have, and how put-together your life is are way more important now than they were when we were all 25 and fucking around. My friends who are the most successful dating-wise now are the ones who invested in themselves. My friend who isn’t necessarily a looker, but who is now a surgeon, has more options than he even has time for. Attractive accomplished women seek guys like him out, not the dude who maybe is in slightly better shape but doesn’t have nearly as much security going for him.

   That’s not to say the guy with less stability won’t be successful, but the guy who is a surgeon can basically decide on a whim to start dating a pretty large number of women if he wanted to. That’s the difference.

4. In general they have a better understanding of what they want/like and are likely to be more mature in how they go about it

   the older you get though, the more likely they have kids/want to settle down soon and have kids, makes it difficult if you want to be childfree

5. Do girls act more serious?

   -Generally yes, in the late 20s more women are looking for a more serious relationship.

   Do they say what they want more?

   -depends on the woman’s personality, but generally they are more mature and know what they want more, especially if they have been in a serious relationship before.

   What’s it like?

   -people tend to have a job, a car, a place to live without room mates, sometimes more money. More people already have been in a serious relationship even a marriage before and might have kids.

6. Rushed to meet someone by the time I was 30. Didn’t arrive with a LT relationship, lost all hope. Then early 30s it’s actually much better. Girls at 30s are much less likely to play games, be fickle, they now know the studs will probably chuck them after a one night stand and they can’t actually do much better.

   You therefore get more options but I’m hardly getting a peep out of early 20s girls. Then again, that’s probably a good thing.

   Biggest thing is just getting your life together as that becomes the focus moreso than the dating games and how you navigate them

7. Everyone has baggage after 30. I would recommend trying hard to find a comparable partner before then. If that doesn’t work, start to unwind your list about what’s a deal breaker because after 30 people have done a lot in life.

8. My ex was 42, had 3 different baby daddies, drama with all of them, worked part time, couldn’t drive thanks to some DUIs that she never bothered to fix, and would get angry if I didn’t text her within a certain time. And would just have major issues about anything.

   My current GF is 24, graduated college, has a full time job, has her own place, no drama, and is very mature about how we text each other. Neither of us want kids. She may change, but so far she’s pretty adamant about it.

   In other words, age really is just a number, you can meet immature women in their 40s just the same as you meet mature women in their 20s, so its never a good idea to pigeonhole based on age.

9. Not worth it. So much baggage everywhere. You have to suffer through that baggage with them and unless you want that, it’s not worth the effort nor is it your problem. I’ll get downvoted for this but women seem to age worse than men for the most part, which also keeps me uninterested in the dating market.

10. This isn’t really a question about gender, but maturity. Most people in their 20s are dumbasses (myself included at the time). I definitely was not as serious about life or knew what I wanted as much as I do now. So same for women. Many will tend to mature and gain wisdom as they get older, and some will stay stuck in their immaturity like some of us guys.

    What will set you up for disappointment though is thinking every woman is the same and wants the same things. They’re just their own various individual people. By knowing what you want in a partner, it can help you find someone similar.

11. It’s hard to say because I’m still with the only 30 year old woman I ever dated. That’s how fucking easy it was. Lol But based on that and what I’ve heard from friends and read online, yes to your questions. They communicate clearly. They don’t fuck around. By 30, we’re all so fucking tired. We’re over all the bullshit. It’s not specific to women.

    “I like you. Do you like me? Okay, cool. Let’s do this shit.”

12. There are age effects and cohort effects. We don’t know what todays 20 somethings will be like in their 30s. Each age cohort is different.

13. I remember reading these threads in my 20s and seeing all the answers and tbh my lived experience has not lined up with them at all. I have never, for instance, met or encountered a woman who cares about a man’s career prospects.

    From what I’ve seen, I would say it’s more like… people sort off into different groups/lifestyles. This is true socially beyond just dating, but it applies to dating as well. The differences were always there, but they become more and more apparent with time as people commit more to the things they value and enjoy in life. Whereas in college or at 22 or something you could have people who do drugs and party all the time living side by side with straight laced yuppie type people who want to complete the checklists on their five year plans, in your 30s those people’s life paths have diverged enough that they live in separate worlds. People inhabit all kinds of little groups; not based on cliques like sitting at the popular table in high school or something, but more like clusters of common ground in activities, values, attitudes, and worldviews.

    I have a group of guys I shoot guns with in the country. In their social set everyone is married by 30 if not earlier. Some of them have even expressed attitudes about your 30s being “on the older side” for having kids. Whereas my high school friends in coastal cities live completely different lives, and only the real “go-getter” types have started to settle down and have kids in their mid 30s. My social group includes a lot of musicians and artsy people and they’re a mixed bag. Some of them are realized they were always introverted nerdy people and have developed the confidence to live quiet, settled lives with long term partners. Others are getting more into partying, cocaine, casual sex, and messy relationships (I have seen people doing this well into their 40s. Not for me but it happens).

    So the short answer is, I really believe you can find all types of experiences including a lot of the stuff that you experience in your 20s, but people diverge a lot more in their lifestyles. You sort of find your group by defining your values and trying to live them out, and a lot of people do that naturally.

14. I’m 28 but dated 30 and above a few times when I was 26. The impression I get is they play way less games but also have much higher expectations in terms of career and finances (rightfully so).

    The topic of children also comes up a lot and it seems they often want to settle down faster in terms of marriage and moving in. I don’t want children and I came to realize I am not at all ready to settle down in the next couple years. The 2 I dated were great women, but I realized I was only wasting their precious time so I’ve taken to being single until probably my mid 30s.

    One of these women I dated just recently got married. She is a religious Muslim and also really wanted children. I felt bad because I wasted a year of her time knowing deep down it probably wasn’t going to work out long term, so I’m really happy she got what she wanted where I would have failed to give her what she really needed