Are single people in their thirties really the “undesirables”?

[Anonymous]

I’m moving to DC from NYC where it’s typical for guys not to settle down until their late 30s/early 40s. I’m late 30s and about half my friends are married and half are very single. We are all in finance and average income is in the seven figures by now. There’s a slight correlation where the wealthier ones are less likely to be married. I assumed it would be the same in DC but maybe not!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who marry before 25 are the real undesirables.

Yeah, they should have been mindless consumers, drunk brunches, traveled and hooked up with random people for another 10 years, then cry about their IVF issues. Dream big, sweetie.

Aww, it's precious that you think these are the only two choices. Wrong, but precious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are strange question for a board that is dc focused. Almost all of my girlfriends including myself married either close to thirty or by mid-thirties. We are all lawyers with two doctors, a PhD, and a banker thrown in so lots of graduate school. For myself i was in many serious relationships but unready to marry And focused on getting my footing in my career. This was the case until I met DH at 30. We dated for 2 years, he proposed then we planned our wedding etc for another year before we married.

This right here. The people I knew who married in early-to-mid 20s were very religious, small town world outlook, believed marriage was a badge of adulthood, had the mentality in the first place that you need to meet your spouse in college, and also ... let's just say ... needed to lock in the first taker they found.

On the other hand, plenty of people I knew who waited until their 30s to settle down did so precisely because they had the looks and career to "wait" -- they enjoyed dating around in college and their 20s as much as possible, traveling, hooking up, etc., and knew they'd get snapped up fast in their early 30s when they were ready to tie the knot, and that's exactly what happened. Rather than being the ones who were running out of time, there is absolutely a group who can afford to have adventures and put off marriage until 30s because they are an attractive commodity.

You're projecting. Chastising happy and balanced peers who married young, then glorifying pissing your 20s and 30s away on consumerism, an extra promotion, brunches, and gross random hookups. Being a young bride and mother is the ideal, being the neurotic 35-yo IVF bride with a balding husband sure isn't.

LOL. You sound like the girls who got knocked up in high school, then defensively sobbed "but...but...you'll be changing diapers when you're FORTY!"

You protest too much. It's very transparent. You're not fooling anyone. Carry on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kamala Harris, first marriage age 49, enough said.

The more of a catch you are, the harder it is to find your match. I am in my 40s and have never wanted to have kids and it would take someone very special to make me want to get married. For context, I have everything going for me and I am happy having my own complete independent life. Sad so many people think it is a reflection of who you are if you are not married by a certain age. Also, living in DC since my early 20s has probably made me uninterested in marriage when I get hit on so frequently by married men in this town when going about my day minding my own business. Probably by the “dear husbands” of many so smugly posting on this thread, hah!

She has issues. Many older, single women can be great at their jobs but have issues. There are lots of single, never-married women in their 30's-40's who are extremely high achievers professionally, but they're not good partners for marriage and children. Not wanting children is typically indicative of an unhappy childhood.

LOL! Citation needed (and no, pulling it out of your *ss doesn't count.

Not wanting children is typically indicative of not wanting children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kamala Harris, first marriage age 49, enough said.

The more of a catch you are, the harder it is to find your match. I am in my 40s and have never wanted to have kids and it would take someone very special to make me want to get married. For context, I have everything going for me and I am happy having my own complete independent life. Sad so many people think it is a reflection of who you are if you are not married by a certain age. Also, living in DC since my early 20s has probably made me uninterested in marriage when I get hit on so frequently by married men in this town when going about my day minding my own business. Probably by the “dear husbands” of many so smugly posting on this thread, hah!

She has issues. Many older, single women can be great at their jobs but have issues. There are lots of single, never-married women in their 30's-40's who are extremely high achievers professionally, but they're not good partners for marriage and children. Not wanting children is typically indicative of an unhappy childhood.

LOL! Citation needed (and no, pulling it out of your *ss doesn't count.

Not wanting children is typically indicative of not wanting children.

I O-gree.

Love,
Oprah

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kamala Harris, first marriage age 49, enough said.

The more of a catch you are, the harder it is to find your match. I am in my 40s and have never wanted to have kids and it would take someone very special to make me want to get married. For context, I have everything going for me and I am happy having my own complete independent life. Sad so many people think it is a reflection of who you are if you are not married by a certain age. Also, living in DC since my early 20s has probably made me uninterested in marriage when I get hit on so frequently by married men in this town when going about my day minding my own business. Probably by the “dear husbands” of many so smugly posting on this thread, hah!

She has issues. Many older, single women can be great at their jobs but have issues. There are lots of single, never-married women in their 30's-40's who are extremely high achievers professionally, but they're not good partners for marriage and children. Not wanting children is typically indicative of an unhappy childhood.

LOL! Citation needed (and no, pulling it out of your *ss doesn't count.

Not wanting children is typically indicative of not wanting children.

I O-gree.

Love,
Oprah

Oprah had a very different issue in her fertile years. Besides not growing up in a stable environment, it was hard to find professionally successful black men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kamala Harris, first marriage age 49, enough said.

The more of a catch you are, the harder it is to find your match. I am in my 40s and have never wanted to have kids and it would take someone very special to make me want to get married. For context, I have everything going for me and I am happy having my own complete independent life. Sad so many people think it is a reflection of who you are if you are not married by a certain age. Also, living in DC since my early 20s has probably made me uninterested in marriage when I get hit on so frequently by married men in this town when going about my day minding my own business. Probably by the “dear husbands” of many so smugly posting on this thread, hah!

She has issues. Many older, single women can be great at their jobs but have issues. There are lots of single, never-married women in their 30's-40's who are extremely high achievers professionally, but they're not good partners for marriage and children. Not wanting children is typically indicative of an unhappy childhood.

LOL! Citation needed (and no, pulling it out of your *ss doesn't count.

Not wanting children is typically indicative of not wanting children.

I O-gree.

Love,
Oprah

Oprah had a very different issue in her fertile years. Besides not growing up in a stable environment, it was hard to find professionally successful black men.

LOL no it wasn’t and she talks about her relationship with Sted now, she’s pretty transparent about her journey

[Anonymous]

Also, Oprah has enough money to be fertile forever and make Stevie Wonder see if she wanted to, she has adorable fur babies by choice

[Anonymous]

So dumb to bring celebrities into the discussion as counterfactuals.

[Anonymous]

Huh? I know almost no one who married before 30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who marry before 25 are the real undesirables.

Yeah, they should have been mindless consumers, drunk brunches, traveled and hooked up with random people for another 10 years, then cry about their IVF issues. Dream big, sweetie.

Aww, it's precious that you think these are the only two choices. Wrong, but precious.

That's the angry dude posting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The happiest, most lovey-dovey couple I've ever known met in their late 70s/early 80s, after they'd both married, raised children, and been widowed after being with their first spouses for decades.

The exact opposite of the point of this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every 45 year old single person says that they are a fantastic catch and only didn't get married because they took their time and were very picky.

This accurately describes around 5% of those single 45 year olds. The other 95% have stuff going on.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kamala Harris, first marriage age 49, enough said.

The more of a catch you are, the harder it is to find your match. I am in my 40s and have never wanted to have kids and it would take someone very special to make me want to get married. For context, I have everything going for me and I am happy having my own complete independent life. Sad so many people think it is a reflection of who you are if you are not married by a certain age. Also, living in DC since my early 20s has probably made me uninterested in marriage when I get hit on so frequently by married men in this town when going about my day minding my own business. Probably by the “dear husbands” of many so smugly posting on this thread, hah!

She has issues. Many older, single women can be great at their jobs but have issues. There are lots of single, never-married women in their 30's-40's who are extremely high achievers professionally, but they're not good partners for marriage and children. Not wanting children is typically indicative of an unhappy childhood.

LOL! Citation needed (and no, pulling it out of your *ss doesn't count.

Not wanting children is typically indicative of not wanting children.

I O-gree.

Love,
Oprah

Oprah had a very different issue in her fertile years. Besides not growing up in a stable environment, it was hard to find professionally successful black men.

LOL no it wasn’t and she talks about her relationship with Sted now, she’s pretty transparent about her journey

Actually, Oprah is a great example. Wonderful person (love her!), but had issues that prevented her from getting married and having kids. She's been very open about that. No one is saying that people single in their mid 30's up can't be great people, just that they're damaged in some way and not desirable partners for marriage and kids. If Oprah wanted that, then she could have had it a million times over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think its more, people who marry earlier tend to have matured earlier. They are making high incomes and can hold down jobs, they are emotionally mature and can sustain a deep connection with another, they have the tools to function in a relationship and make big decisions with another person in mind.

Many people arrive at this later. The people I know who married later in life had a longer "figuring themselves out" period. Men AND women.

The men are usually immature and do not have a career or life goals figured out. The women have low self esteem and keep running after jerks. Finally something clicks and they arrive at the alter the way their mentally more mature peers did earlier.

This could not be further from my own experiences. There may be some outliers, but in my experience it is the most immature people who have the narrowest world views who marry at young ages. Of the 5ish people I know who married right after college, it was very clearly a way to have something and someone "known" while going out into the scary real world; 2 years was the record for these Mulligan Marriages. A mature person would have acknowledged that the next few years would bring about many changes and they would have wanted to focus on career, friends, travel. DEFINITELY not my experience that these people who are marrying in their early 20s are high earners who have their shit together, quite the opposite. They also seem to be the ones who go on to have epic mid-life crisis where you have 40 year old men acting like frat bros looking to relive the "glory days" and desperate wine moms clamoring for "girls night!" so they can flirt and get handsy with the waiter. They settled and didn't get to have those fun experiences, so they'll look to recoup that time later. Very unflattering. I work with tons of high earning men and women and none of them were married at 25. Not one. They were definitely not immature and without life goals, in fact they were working REALLY hard in their 20s to set themselves up for for the best possible outcome for life down the road when they eventually did want to marry and start a family.

Putting off getting married to invest in your career might make sense for men, but working really hard and being single in your 20s for a woman is a good way to wind up unmarried and/or without kids. Your career success beyond a certain point doesn't make you more valuable as a partner to men, and being older narrows your options. In big cities with more women, the 30s dating scene is a tough one to be in, and the numbers just are not on your side. And then there's the age-related infertility issues. The longer you wait, the more you're rolling the dice on this. It might work out, and I'm sure it often does, but if you very much want to get married and have multiple kids, you are better off looking seriously for a partner to marry by your late 20s.