Dating a guy in his 30a

It means you have more than a few horror stories to share and a completely unapologetic no bs approach to your romantic life.

Let’s face it, dating changes in your 30’s. By that point you’re older, have been around the block at least a few times, have had your heartbroken probably more than once, have fallen in love probably a few times, and likely have a really good idea what you’re looking for. By your 30’s you’ve seen some sh*t. You’ve seen how amazing love can be, but you’ve also seen the dark underbelly of what happens when love falls apart as well. I say that if you’re still single by your 30’s then you’ve probably been to war — meaning you have some real bona fide dirt under your fingernails, life experience when it comes to relationships. While someone who leaves the single world in their 20’s managed to escape the draft and true warfare in the dating world. But your 30’s it’s a different story — you probably have some PTSD form all you’ve seen and endured in your dating and romantic life. While the serious side of this could result in you being a little closed off (potentially with a chip on your shoulder), on the hilarious side, it means you have more than a few horror stories to share and a completely unapologetic no bullsh*t approach to your romantic life.

So with that in mind, here are 17 hilarious ways dating changes in your 30’s.

17 Everyone Has Baggage

If you’re single by your 30’s and have no relationship baggage — no shattering heartbreaks, messy breakups, major disappointments, or carousel of bad dates — then you’ve been living under a rock. By the time you’re dating in your 30’s everyone you meet is a little f*cked up because of past experiences. Once you both agree you’re messed up then you can move forward with the relationship a lot quicker. Whether that baggage is something physical like an ex-spouse, or kids, or more emotional baggage such as a relationship where you were cheated on, a failed engagement, or a relationship that ended with someone whom you were certain you were going to marry. Baggage is almost unavoidable by this age, but you just hope that their baggage isn’t weighing them down to the point that they don’t have the capacity to date and love with an open heart. You hope that such experiences have not made them bitter and jaded about love. Your hope is that, both of you have worked through these experiences and become wiser and better off for the failures you’ve endured, so that you can now actually love smarter and deeper than you ever did before. Just before you engage with someone make sure that it appears they’ve worked through their baggage and done the necessary work to be better off because of it, not worse for wear.

16 Many People Have A Chip On Their Shoulder

The truth is that these experiences and baggage do in fact give many people a chip on their shoulder. This chip is usually the expectation that nothing ever works out, no matter how promising it may seem in the beginning. Most people dating in their 30’s have a painfully realistic outlook on relationships, as opposed to more of an idealistic one they probably held onto for the majority of their 20’s. After failing enough, and having enough times where they were sure they had met their person, to only then have it come crashing down, the rose coloured glasses have been replaced with more of a dystopian, vulture-infested outlook on love. When you start dating someone new, no matter how amazing and awesome they appear to be, you’re just holding your breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know to cage your hope and happiness about new romantic prospects that enter your life because that’s what your experiences have taught you to do. This chip makes you more likely to sabotage a new relationship, you’re slower out of the gate to love, and might not give someone the benefit of the doubt because you expect them to let you down.

15 Bulls**t Detectors Are Razor Sharp

You could say that dating in your 30’s is one giant game of bullsh*t. Just two people sitting across from each other waiting to call bullsh*t on each other. That’s because you’ve seen it all — you’ve seen all the games and are adept enough to know when someone isn’t being straight up with you. That and you just don’t have the time or energy to put up with it. You don’t want to play games in your 30’s, you just want to meet someone decent who wants the same things you do. Your bullsh*t detector is also on point when it comes to detecting red flags from a mile away. So you’re better at knowing where to invest your time because you don’t bother dating people you don’t have a future with. This leads to a lot less of the wrong relationships and a lot less stress because you’re better at being honest early on about what you want.

14 Everyone’s “Want List” Has Gotten Smaller

You ask a 22-year-old what they want in a SO, they will probably rattle off a wish list that would completely overwhelm Cupid. But you ask a 35-year-old what they want in a partner, they will probably just tell you they want someone who isn’t a complete a**hole…and maybe someone who still has hair…yeah a full head of hair would be nice. When you date in your 30’s it’s an interesting dichotomy because you’re pickier than you were when you were younger but you have less criteria as to what you look for in a partner. What this means is that you will put up with less bullsh*t (IE. You won’t put up with someone who doesn’t treat you well or doesn’t make you feel good like you might have at 22) but there are less physical attributes and personality traits that you necessarily look for in a partner. You just want someone who shares similar values and wants the same things in their future as you do. And probably someone that makes you laugh and you can have a good time with. You’re willing to let the little things go because you now know that every relationship is going to have difficulties and there will always be things that bug you about someone, but just as long as you’re on par with the big and important things, the small things are easier to get past. But in your 20’s those little things can become deal breakers because you have the advantage of time on your side and disadvantage of less experience with actual grown up relationships to draw from.

13 Everyone Is Looking For A Life Partner

In your 20’s you’re looking for a relationship or sex, but in your 30’s everyone is looking for a life partner. It’s basic human instinct to seek companionship and connection, and ultimately someone who you can share your life with and have it mean something. This human instinct becomes increasingly strong in your 30’s. So you could say that dating in your 30’s is some serious sh*t. It’s like a high stakes game of black jack where all the players are looking to cash in their chips and win big with someone who they can settle down with. This puts a strange unspoken pressure around every date or person you’re talking to — because whether you want to admit it or not — you’re always wondering if this could be the person you marry. While the age thing definitely makes dating in your 30’s more of a business-like approach, it also makes it hilarious because people aren’t swiping on dating apps and going on dates just looking for a relationship anymore, they’re looking for a bona-fide life partner.

12 Things Move Fast Or They Don’t Move At All

In your 30’s relationships go fast or they don’t move at all. You usually start having sex a lot quicker (cause you’ve both been around the block) and when you have a strong connection, you take those big relationship steps a lot faster than in your 20’s. In your 20’s there a lot of couples who are together for 3 or 4 years before moving in together, while a lot of couples in their 30’s will date for as little as 6 months to a year before they start talking about moving in together. In your 20’s you’re far more likely to sit in an idle relationship, unlike your 30’s where your relationship is over if it’s not moving forward in any way. That’s because you’re older and know what you want, and so when you find it, you don’t want to waste time and just want to get the ball rolling. You’re also a lot more mature and ready for commitment by that point, so have less resistance about committing to someone and moving your relationship along. In your 30’s you will go on vacations together sooner, spend important holidays together sooner, and introduce one another to your friend circles faster because you essentially want to go through a crash course relationship and get those answers about your compatibility as a couple early on so you don’t sit around wasting valuable years in a relationship that isn’t going to last.

11 It’s Mutually Accepted You’ve Both Dated And Slept With A Lot Of People

When you start dating someone in your 20’s the whole, “How many people have you slept with?” question is likely to come up at some point. But in your 30’s, nobody asks that question because it’s just understood that you’ve obviously both f*cked a lot of people by now. Unfortunately, you both know you’re probably a little worn out like an old baseball glove, so you don’t really care to hear one another rattle off the endless list of crazy sexual exploitations you’ve had with partners from all over the world over the last decade. It’s kind of sad because you know by this age you’re not going to get someone untapped like you might find if you met in college or in your early twenties, when you probably each only had one serious high school relationship prior. When you’re in your 30’s, you both stare at each other across the table wondering, “I can only imagine all the crazy sh*t this person has done and/or had done to them since they started having sex 15 years ago!!”

10 You Ask The Serious Questions Fast And Frequently

For myself personally, I only just turned 30 a few months ago, so the girls I date usually vary in the range from mid-twenties to early-thirties. And the biggest difference I realized about the girls in their early thirties versus the mid-twenties girls is that they ask the serious questions, “Do you want to get married?” and “Do you want to have kids?” fast and frequently. Like literally right out of the gate, actually on the very first date. A lot of them even before we go on the first date. I understand that they’re trying to qualify you whether or not it’s even worth their energy to on that one date with you, which obviously seems to be dependent on whether or not your dating intention right now is to meet someone, settle down, and start a family. I totally understand why they ask those questions, and for me personally, these heavy questions don’t bug me. At least not anymore. I just find it funny that when you reach your 30’s these types of questions are completely appropriate to ask very early. You know you’ve reached that next tier of dating — where everything becomes more serious and direct — when your dates are asking the loaded marriage and babies question before you even know each other. In your 20’s, many guys will run for the hills if marriage and babies are brought up too soon (sometimes even if they’re brought up at all), but guys in their 30’s actually welcome and enjoy these types of questions because they obviously want to know if this person they’re getting to know is family-oriented and on the same page as them when it comes to future family ambitions as well.

9 Rejection Doesn’t Faze You Anymore

In your 20’s rejection is likely to affect you a lot more than it does in your 30’s. That’s because you have less experience with it. By your 30’s you’re well aware your worth and all that you have to offer someone, so you have an easier time shrugging off rejection because you don’t attach your worth to someone else. Also, you’ve gone on enough years of being single, and enough letdowns and disappointments at this point, that one more is not going to break you. By your 30’s, you would love to meet someone and have it work out, but you also know that you’re going to be okay if it doesn’t. You’ll just adopt, freeze your eggs, or just become a crazy cat lady. Okay, I guess you actually do want to meet someone. But don’t let that take away from the fact that you also don’t really give a f*ck and can take rejection on the chin because you know the right person would climb mountains to be someone like you.

8 You Know What You Want And Won’t Compromise

As much as your SO want list has shrunk over the years, the things still on that list are often deal breakers. You’ve experienced enough of what you don’t want over the years to know what is non-negotiable and certain things you absolutely do need in a partner. Usually these things that you won’t compromise on by this stage in the game are big value things — someone who 100% wants to have kids, someone who shares the same religious faith, someone who is a good communicator, someone you can laugh with, or someone who likes to live the same type of healthy lifestyle that you do. By your 30’s, you’ve experienced enough of the wrong relationships to give you a pretty helpful consensus of what you HAVE to have in someone for a relationship to work for you. Now you’re able to cipher out the wrong people for you a lot faster than you did in your 20’s because of what your failed experiences have taught you.

7 You Expect Them To Be Good At Sex By Now

Okay, at this point you know they’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of different partners. So you expect them to be good at sex by this point. When you date in your 30’s you want an established sexual partner; you don’t want someone who you need to still teach things to at this point. Say you start dating someone at 23, you go into knowing that it’s possible they don’t have a crazy amount of experience to draw from, and probably still have things they need to learn or get better at. But you meet in your 30’s, you know their sexual prowess is basically fully-formed, whatever bad habits they’ve built up are probably pretty solid, and essentially, the sexual partner they are right now is more fixed and less likely to change than if they’re a younger person in their 20’s. So if someone is bad in the bedroom in their 30’s, they probably aren’t going to get any better. Obviously you want to date someone who is good in bed, so whatever bedroom sample size you get from someone in their 30’s is probably pretty accurate of their full potential.

6 All You Really Want Is Someone To Watch Movies With, Eat Food With, And A Date For Wedding Season

By the time your 30’s come around a lot of the big partying days are over. The lifestyle you lead in this decade is usually a more balanced homebody-type lifestyle than you did in your 20’s when you hit every party, every single weekend. It’s for this reason that your relationship desires have become simplified — you just want someone to snuggle on the couch with, someone to watch movies with, someone to get food with, and someone to tag team the upcoming stream of weddings that are on your calendar. Chris Rock said it best when he summarized what a marriage is, “Just someone to f*ck and go see movies with, someone to f*ck and go see movies with, someone to f*ck and get something to eat with. If you don’t like f*cking someone, and you don’t like eating with them, don’t marry them!” You could say that by your 30’s all you really want is a partner — you aren’t necessarily as tied to finding epic romance or some fairy tale because you’ve seen enough bad situations to have a very feet-on-the-ground approach to finding love.

5 The Dating Scene Feels Like You’re Trying To Feed Yourself From A Pile Of Scraps

Sometimes dating in your 30’s can feel like you’re feeding yourself from a pile of leftovers, or shopping for used goods. For the fact everyone has been around so many times before — if you start dating someone in your crowd of people there is probably a good chance they’ve slept or dated with one or more of your friends. And it can be tough to even find anyone who’s even single at this point — everyone is either married or in a long-term relationship about to get married, and even if they’re single, they probably have so much baggage that it hardly even seems worth it to get involved. This is why: if you can find someone in their 30’s who is unattached and seems to have minimal or manageable baggage, marry that person tomorrow! So often dating in your 30’s is simply a matter of choosing what’s left, or just secretly waiting out that person you had a crush on in college to get divorced before you can make your move.

4 You Give A F**k But Also Don’t Give A F**k About Meeting Someone

If you’re still single by your 30’s obviously you want to meet someone, but at the same time you know you will be okay if you don’t mean anyone. It’s a weird combination of feeling pressure to meet someone and settle down, but at the same time you’ve stopped caring altogether. You’ve been single for long enough, or had enough failed relationships, that you’ve mentally and emotionally prepared yourself that you actually might not meet someone. That perhaps it’s just not in the cards for you, or if it is going to happen, it’s going to happen later in life. And it’s okay because you’ve created a pretty great life on your own — you’re established in your career, are a strong and independent person, have great friends, and actually have learned to be happy without having someone. So you just know that you’re going to be okay if it doesn’t happen for you, but at the same time, you’re praying it does happen. It’s this strange combination of still really, really giving a f*ck about meeting someone, but at the same time surrendering all f*cks and just having faith that whatever is going to happen, is going to happen.

3 You Notice Yourself Attracted To Things You Never Used To Consider That Important

Since I turned 30 I’ve noticed myself saying things like, “She would make a great mother!” a lot more than I used to. It’s those things you never considered to be important, or things that you didn’t put at the centrefold of attraction, that begin to shift once you reach your 30’s. This could be things like being attracted to someone because they have a good job and make a stable income, have a full head of hair, are really selfless and supportive of your career and ambitions, or come from a good family that has a similar dynamic to your family, which helps lead to your similar family values. In your 20’s you probably want to date someone who is hot and cool. But in your 30’s those priorities are certainly going to shift to be completely void of the superficial bullsh*t you cared about too much when you were younger. First off, you’re older now and definitely care about your partner’s physical appearance less than you did in your 20’s. You probably put someone’s intelligence right at the top of the least as well, while you probably dated a couple people who weren’t the brightest in your 20’s. Essentially, you just want someone who is a good person and will make a great partner, and a lot of the qualities you really value now weren’t as important in your 20’s.

2 Your Coupled Friends Want To Set You Up More Now Than Ever

Single people in their 30’s kind of feel alienated, like everyone who’s in a relationship is looking at them and feeling sorry for them. Singles in their 30’s are always fielding those offers from their coupled friends to be set-up with that ONE other single person they know. They think you’re perfect for each other for one distinct reason: you’re both still single. It’s sort of like people think they need to intervene and help you now. Like, whatever you’re doing is obviously not working and you need to be helped like some sort of starving dog or lost puppy that needs to find a home. And while you hate that your friends make you feel like some sort of charity case or society reject who can’t find a lasting relationship, you’re now at the point where you’re actually open to trying something different. In your 20’s, those offers didn’t come in because your coupled friends felt like you had enough time on your side that they didn’t need to step in yet. But now, they see the dating market turning into a barren landscape and feel it’s their duty, as someone who has their romantic sh*t together, to swoop in and save the day. And hey, the whole online dating thing isn’t working out for you so why the f*ck not get set-up with your girlfriend’s husband’s personal trainer. At least you know he will have a nice body and is probably a decent human being if your trusted girlfriend is giving it the go ahead.

1 You Find Yourself Having To Explain Why You’re Still Single A Little Too Much

If you’re still single in your 30’s you find yourself having to explain to people why you’re still single a little too often. It’s almost as if they just assume that you have someone based off how old you are — and for the fact that you most certainly do seem like a catch — then when you tell them your status they give you that response, “Oh!”, which basically means, “Oh f*ck, I’m sorry to hear that,” without them even saying it. You hate that you constantly need to justify your single status to other people to the extent that it feels like you’re trying to salvage yourself as a normal, happy person in their eyes. For you, it just hasn’t happened, you know. You’ve had different relationships that just didn’t pan out in the end. You know your worth as a person — and you haven’t had someone at your level — who you’ve been interested in dating. You don’t want to settle, but in the process of not settling you’ve had to deal with a constant peppering of that annoying question that makes you feel like there is something wrong with you because you don’t have someone.

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