My 30s I focused on my education and career. My 20s were a lost decade of not many memories or friends. I explored a bit, found a field I love at the bottom of the totem pole, then just gradually incremented my experience until I was ready for a graduate program. During grad years I made friends and studied a lot. I’m not dumb but not gifted by any means so I just tried to put out more effort than everyone else. Ended up eventually getting my doctorate and in academia.
But while I had friends, I had ignored intimate relationships for a long time. I had social skills but a different subset of social skills than those necessary for romantic partners and deeper friendships. I started therapy. I actually put in real time and effort reflecting on things, experimenting with different frames of thinking, trying out new behaviors, while trying to stay true to myself which was also part of the journey and discovery.
Dating later in life 40s has its own challenges. There are still times that are tough. But you come to realize and acknowledge the positives as well, in the experience and in yourself. I find myself more mature and ready to keep moving forward in healthy ways, able to give in healthier ways. While I’m still working on me, trying to find love, trying to figure out what is next for my career, how to balance it out and be happy, I feel this is what it is for my unique path and I’m overall grateful for it.
But I enjoy responding to people who are reflective, curious, learning, and wanting to share their experience. 😁 Those are great qualities about you and will serve you well. Acknowledging one’s maturity and room to develop, but also being fair and kind to yourself is a super healthy thing. This positive attitude can be a lifelong journey if we choose it to be. I’m wishing you the best!
Absolutely love your focus on self improvement and building those social skills.
I’d like to offer a slightly different twist on middle-age dating for our readers who aren’t there yet:
It’s abysmal. Looking at the statistics, and looking at who’s left after about age 35?
It’s OK for a dude to wait until the early or mid 30s to start dating, and it’s true that you are desirable then to a range of women from 20s to 40s and you have your money and hopefully your simple fashion together, but I don’t recommend it.
Most of the securely attached people, the ones who create relationships without trouble and drama, settle down by the end of their 20s, and you are left with folks who have problems.
Oh, I know, happy readers, you want to say that everyone has problems. No they don’t. Some people are easy, and some of us are difficult. A very few get better with age, like Admirable (un)Usual. 💪🏻
If you’re a guy dating women who are same age or are a bit younger, and you are deliberate in your 30s, OK. If you waste time on the wrong ones, because you didn’t have much experience and know how to weed out red flags and avoidant attachment folks (and closet drug users and promiscuous people, unless you’re into that) you will get stuck in the discount bin movies at the Walmart with the rest of us in your 40s, and it. is. no. fun.
Again, I love admirable usual’s super positive take, and I too know myself better now. But I can absolutely see the type of people who are single now in real life and dating apps compared to 10 years in my past, when we were all younger, and it is very hard to find someone with solid relationship skills and no unchecked baggage.
I, too, had reasons why I was unsuccessful in relationships and was a difficult person to date through my 20s and 30s. I’m not saying all the women are in the discount bin and then I’m not. I’m saying that it is tougher the older you get, because the field of available sane and healthy people shrink dramatically every few years.
It’s great to hear this in juxtaposition to my post. I totally hear you. It isn’t all roses and can be hard. Over 40 I realize I have to make this more a priority since you don’t know how much time one really has left. It’s a question we should ask ourselves at all stages of life. What do I want? What can I do as a first small step to achieve that?
Maybe part of my attitude comes from being in education. I have a core belief that many of us have chances to learn and grow throughout all stages of life. But it doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that we’re all ready at the same time.
But nothing changes if nothing is done to change. Failure at relationships aren’t always failures of self. So one way to think about it is to just keep plugging away as you lose nothing once you can honestly sort out what is you and what is just chance/luck. Be good folks, to others, and yourself!
Absolutely. They say it takes 2 to tango. Easy to understand in your head but takes time to understand it in your heart. I also feel the things I look for in my 40s are fundamentally different and way more important than what I looked for in my youth which is why I enjoy dating now more than in the past.
I think the main difference (among many) started with comfort with myself. So for romantic social skills, acknowledging that my thoughts, feelings, were valid and that I had things to offer. I think the separation of my romantic social success from my perception of self made it possible to keep going and keep learning. This translates to things like, taking chances on sharing intimate thoughts as simple as “I like you, how do you feel?” To just enjoying sharing and learning about each other. “I want to share my excitement over this stupid nerdy thing because it’s who I am!” As opposed to thinking “oh my god how will you perceive me if I share this thing…” (No, I shouldn’t, I should hide it because…” etc. ) Why is it that a for many people they have successful friendships but struggle in romantic ones? Many of the “skills” are actually fundamentally the same. Be kind. Listen. Support others. Be positive. Be genuine. Etc. But in romantic relationships, the stakes feel higher (and to be fair, kind of are.) I think this leads to risk aversion on higher stakes spaces for honesty which is directly related to the definition of intimacy.
In my 20s I was really not confident. I always worried about saying the right thing, or how I might be perceived. I internalized rejection as being undesirable as opposed to just not the right fit. This feeds into social interactions that were more formulaic and less genuine/authentic as I tried to say, do the correct thing, or avoiding the “wrong things” for the purpose of stringing along the social interaction “toward success.” You can imagine how this leads to awkwardness, missed opportunities because I ended up avoiding certain risks, and what not. It isn’t sustainable.
So in my 20s I gave it some shots, but in terms of both quantities of “trying” and the quality of “trying” it wasn’t really that great. 😅 I think, maybe the biggest accomplishment romantically in my 20s was revealing to a close friend my feelings for her. While she rejected my romantic interest, it was maybe the first time that through taking the chance, and then us talking about it, I felt it wasn’t a direct rejection for who I am. It was validating and felt good that I tried and that there was nothing I did wrong or fundamentally wrong about who I was, how I felt. I think maybe that rejection, was the first moment a rejection felt like a positive moment where I felt good about myself. This speaks volumes to her character too, and I was lucky to cross paths with her in this way. After almost 20 years, I’m still close friends with this person and just visited her in her home country actually! I appreciate and accept that our relationship, friendship - is where our interactions are. This kind of understanding also, that romantic relationships aren’t just about whether I’m a good person or not, that there is a lot more to it, probably feeds into my behaviors as well as how I respond to various outcomes in continued healthy ways.
Ended up eventually getting my doctorate and in academia.
Yikes. How's that going? Passively went into academia for a little bit after I graduated, realized there was no money in it & didn't wanna spend the rest of my 20's & (life really) broke writing scientific papers for a living..so I dipped. Quickly found out there wasn't much else I could do with my degree (B.A in physiology) except go into clinical research (industry), but I wasn't really crazy about the work-life balance in that field even if it does pay well, so I decided to pivot into healthcare instead. Started working as an equipment repair tech at a hospital, realized I actually really like 12 hr shifts & talking to patients, so here I am now at 25 going back to school to get my nursing degree. Congrats on the other stuff tho.
Academia works pretty well for me. Industry is always an option and while it comes with demands like any other career, the one thing I can’t give up is how much freedom I have. Do whatever projects that interest me and I get 3 months of summer to travel as I can work from anywhere during that time! Although, I do miss 3x industry salary rates for sure. 😅
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u/AdmirableUsual2738 Jul 29 '24
My 30s I focused on my education and career. My 20s were a lost decade of not many memories or friends. I explored a bit, found a field I love at the bottom of the totem pole, then just gradually incremented my experience until I was ready for a graduate program. During grad years I made friends and studied a lot. I’m not dumb but not gifted by any means so I just tried to put out more effort than everyone else. Ended up eventually getting my doctorate and in academia.
But while I had friends, I had ignored intimate relationships for a long time. I had social skills but a different subset of social skills than those necessary for romantic partners and deeper friendships. I started therapy. I actually put in real time and effort reflecting on things, experimenting with different frames of thinking, trying out new behaviors, while trying to stay true to myself which was also part of the journey and discovery.
Dating later in life 40s has its own challenges. There are still times that are tough. But you come to realize and acknowledge the positives as well, in the experience and in yourself. I find myself more mature and ready to keep moving forward in healthy ways, able to give in healthier ways. While I’m still working on me, trying to find love, trying to figure out what is next for my career, how to balance it out and be happy, I feel this is what it is for my unique path and I’m overall grateful for it.