‘The day is finally upon us. The girl that was always destined to be 30 now is!’ wrote a friend in my birthday card. What’s funny is she wasn’t the only one. Lots of my pals have reckoned I’ve been in my thirties for about 15 years already, and it’s fair to say I’ve been ready to be here for a whiiiiiiiiile. So, what happens now?
Come be the decade I need
Well, I’ve leaned in to the stereotypes – I finally bought some premium bonds, it’s tricky to find a pair of socks in my drawer that aren’t from M&S, and I’ve got another half marathon next weekend (though I’d like it known that I’ve been running since before #runfluencers took off and running became something you did during a midlife crisis). But it’s not really these ‘grown up’ things that’ve made me see my thirties as the one. It’s the quiet confidence that everyone says come with it – that it’s the years where you can slow down, calm down, and reaaaally get to know yourself.
Thirty, not flirty, sometimes thriving
Did I buck the trend on the fourth day of my thirties? Perhaps. My head was in the loo, knowing that the antics of the pub crawl that’d finished hours before only had about five minutes to make themselves known before my family arrived at my flat for brunch that I was responsible for cooking. By some miracle, the fizz-beer combo stayed in and I just about managed to serve a hundred sausages in time for the cavalry. So, maybe your thirties aren’t so calm at all…
…but that’s obvs up to me. Swing to yesterday, and I spent the afternoon at a friend’s digging a flowerbed, blowing raspberries at another friend’s baby, and driving home after a takeout. I know – me, sober(!) and driving on a Saturday night. Who’d have thought???
The pressure to have it all when you’re in your twenties and single
I don’t know why I spent my twenties feeling like calm weekends were to be frowned upon. That’s a lie, I do – ‘work hard, play hard’ and ‘you can sleep when you’re dead’ are just a couple of the phrases that’d spiiin around my head whenever anyone asked me for a drink. Even if I was shattered, I couldn’t say no to meeting friends at the pub, ready to see where the night was gonna take me. (Largely to five or six pints, chatting to anyone and everyone, the need to dance, the occasional sending of the ‘you up?’ text, and wobbling home to a verrrrrrrrrry suspicious looking pizza.)
There’s a sort of ‘buzz’ that comes with being single, particularly in your late twenties. People tell you that you’re lucky, because you have zero responsibilities. That the world is your oyster – you can travel anywhere, at any time. And if you’re not, then you should be, because how dare you waste the best years of your life? You go on dates because yes, you want to, but also because there’s sometimes not a lot else to do on a Thursday evening. And your friends NEED someone to live ‘vicariously’ through, because they’re engaged, married, with child (or two or three), and the dating stories are few and far between.
But, it’s a lot. A lot of dates, a lot of pressure, and more often than not, a lot of disappointment. (Yet it’s also a lot of stories to write about, so every cloud and that.)
Welcome aboard the dating merry-go-round
Make no mistake – I may now be thirty, but I’m still single. Like, ubeeeer single. So single I wouldn’t even know who to text ‘you up?’ to anymore. (Boo.) Nothing’s really changed in that sense, but everything’s changed in another. Because being single and 30 is different for everyone.
There are either people like me, the ones who have been, shall we say, ‘unlucky’. We’ve had (and have still got) the best intentions, but we’ve simply not found the person we wanna spend the rest of our lives with. (I know some of my friends will tell me that I have and that I’ve ignored it BUT, you can’t be perfect all the time.)
Or there are the people who’ve hit thirty and have this moment where they’re like ‘fuck, what am I doing with this person?’. The people who are splitting up with partners of 10+ years, ending engagements, trying to get divorced…
And what happens when you mix all of these people together? You get a a shitload of guys and girls who are all sad and lonely but free and horny, either in therapy, have had therapy, or are heading to therapy – AKA the Wild West, AKA dating in your thirties. See my face for more details:
Six times a bridesmaid
Take this, for example. I’m going to four weddings this year and I’ll be a bridesmaid for the sixth time (I’m gonna have to start charging soon). In the last five years, the answers I get when I ask my engaged friends ‘so, who’s single that’s going to your wedding?’ have changed a LOT. At a push, I’d say there are 1-2 single guys at weddings now (compared to 5-10 a few years ago) and that’s if we count the guys who’ve cheated on their girlfriends and may or may not be bringing them to the celebrations…
Let’s just say the pool is SHALLOW, people, shallower than the children’s pool at an all-inclusive hotel. And where I was once ready to dive in head-first, I’m now more of a tentative gonna-put-one-toe-in-at-a-time-er.
I think. Maybe. I don’t know.
So, what is next?
How to date at 30
Being poorly, for one. I’m typing this with a rubbish cold on a dreary Sunday afternoon before the first Bank Holiday in May. I love a touch of pathetic fallacy, and I’m not-so-secretly chuffed that the weather’s turned crap whilst I’m unwell, otherwise I’d have forced myself into making the most of the day and doing something fun in the sun (old habits die hard), which would’ve probs meant I’d feel worse for wear tomorrow and would be spending the rest of the week in the trenches. (And we can’t be having that, seeing as I’m going for my half mara PB next Sunday, ehhhhhh.)
But back to dating – the girls reckon it’s time to throw caution to the wind. Full of Thai food, we watched a romcom last night, and they giggled at how much I thought my dates could be like the ones on the screen. (But if I may, it’s not as though I’m living in la la land seeing as I do have a pretttttttty nice track record of first, second, third dates, and meet-cutes on the train or in an après ski bar.) As the credits rolled, they told me to just go on the damn dates, go on a million damn dates, and shake off any expectations that they’ve got to be or feel or look a certain way. As one of them put it, ‘FOR GOODNESS SAKE GABRIELLE, PLEASE JUST SNOG SOMEONE!!!’
Touché.
Everything and nothing has changed
In the 11 days I’ve been thirty, things have changed. But then again, I guess they haven’t really. I’m still the same, but I also feel like I’ve let out a breath I was holding for much of my twenties. When you’re a single woman, people think they can tell you what to do – even at 29. But at 30? It feels different. And though it’s always been up to me if I want to send it at the weekend or line myself up for nine hours of sleep, do a pencil jump or merely dip a bunion into the dating pool, listen to a highbrow podcast or fill up on MTGM, I really feel that now I’m thirty, it is actually up to me. Starting with my next solo trip – to where, I’m not sure yet. But as long as there’s sun and sand, books and beers, and a sprinkle of holiday magic, my thirties are gonna be fiiiiine.
(But until that’s booked, we’ll start with downloading Hinge for the 72nd time, not influenced by my friends yesterday at all…)
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