What are the most common ways women waste their 20s?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Pretending for a moment this is not another incel thread.
What makes any of you think your dating advice from 20 to 40 years ago is at all relevant to women 25 and younger? |
Anonymous
|
Things people should do in their 20s -
Save for retirement Wear sunscreen Find mentors at work and network outside your company Not share your life on Instagram and TikTok Go to therapy and work on any issues with your family |
Anonymous
| Wow. OP I feel really sad for you that you both experienced cultural pressure to have sex you did not want in your 20s, and now are still so snowed under by the same cultural misogyny that you are ruminating on how women can be “wasted” (by implication, are trash once they are no longer young) and want to transmit that to the next generation of your women. |
Anonymous
m As someone who dates in the 21-25 age range, it’s very coming for them to think of 25 as the time to get serious about relationships and not 30 as was common when I was young. |
Anonymous
|
Huh. All the women I know wasted their 20s by:
- getting JDs and MBAs and PhDs and CS degrees - living in amazing cities like NYC and London and Madrid - traveling - having great sex (and generating great storied for the bad sex) - going to yoga and brunch on Sundays - working hard at presitigious professional jobs that established their financial security for the rest of their lives - if they wanted and it worked out, getting married and having babies in their 30s |
Anonymous
This. The main thing I regret about my 20s is not doing more hiking/camping, learning to ski, going on long outdoor adventures. |
Anonymous
get an iud!!! that is great advice for 20-something women. I really wanted one in my 20s but they were not really common for women who had not given birth then. |
Anonymous
You should take a minute and decide if you want to marry him. None of the rest matters. |
Anonymous
|
Marrying right after college is cool and smart. You should be in that mentality.
Sleeping around aka "dating" around is gross, unhealthy, and leads to mental despair. Your laptop, PowerPoint, Excel, email job is not actually important. Stop being an alcoholic. Traveling is a time and money sink. |
Anonymous
Elope. 9 months is the avg time before marriage, 24 months is more than enough time. Elope. |
Anonymous
Your first two statements are harsh with a grain of truth and the third is definitely true. The last statement.... I couldn't possibly disagree more. Travel early and often. Cheaply if you can. Apply for internships, stipends, study abroad, fellowships, short term jobs, ANYTHING and travel to far flung places in the world FOR FREE or cheaply. This is something you can basically only do in your 20s. Travel, travel, travel! Especially when the pandemic hit, I thanked all the stars that I said "YES" to so many opportunities when I was young. Because you never know what can happen. Pandemics, politics, kids, jobs, money. Adult problems. Use your youth to travel. Get lost on a city's public transit system, stay in a hostel, fumble around in a foreign language. Have adventures, DO IT!!! |
Anonymous
Huh so I should have married my loser boyfriend instead of taking a Fulbright after college? Good to know! |
Anonymous
You forgot the part where they figure out if they actually want to get married. |
Anonymous
|
I did not waste my 20s. I had a good time, made great friends and memories, went to grad school, started my career, saved some money (and spent some money). I meet my DH when I was 29 and that's worked out well for me.
If I wasted any time, it was between 30 and 35. And it wasn't on my love life, it was on (1) friendships with people who were bad friends or users, who I was too forgiving of and too willing to put up with their BS because I thought they were longterm friends. They were flaky and self-absorbed. A few of them were terrible gossips and I wound up genuinely hurt when I found this out (it should have been obvious, I was naive). But the main issue is just that I thought these people were real friends and they were more like fun acquaintances. I didn't need to cut them out of my life, I just needed to approach these friendships with fewer expectations and a lot less trust/loyalty. I think it's because I never really had a best friend or cohesive friend group and at the time I was going to weddings and being in bridal parties with people who were like "Larla's best friend since childhood" or "Larla's ride-or-die college roommate" and I don't have people like that in my life. But I needed to let go of the ideal of what friendship was supposed to look like and embrace the good friends I did (and still) have, and stop accepting crappy friendship simply in the hopes that it would turn into something that looks more like what I thought my friend situation was supposed to look like. Basically what OP describes in terms of her behavior with dates/boyfriends in her 20s, that's how I think I was with friends in my 30s. (2) I wish I'd been more confident in my professional life and gone after some opportunities and taken more chances. I was very conservative and too afraid of failing at a time when failing would have been acceptable (pre-kids, still early enough in my career to pivot pretty easily). My career has been fine but I missed out on some stuff I now wish I could go back in time and take advantage of, and once you have kids, a lot of possibilities close off. Though to be fair to myself, I was also dealing with depression during that time and it makes sense that I made the choices I made, even if I can now see that they weren't the best ones for me. You live and you learn. I have a pretty happy life now but like anyone, I have some regrets. My 20s really aren't one of them though, unless you count some regrets about choosing the grad school I did, which resulted in a lot of debt I'm still paying off. Still might have been worth it? Can't undo it so oh well. |
Anonymous
Some gems in here but also some very wrong stuff! Here's how I would amend: Be ready to marry the right person when they come along, including if they come along in college or right after. Don't get married just to get married but don't "shop around" thinking there's some prize at the end of a long dating career. There isn't. If you find someone you love and feel like you can build a life with, and he feels the same way, dive in. Sleeping around for its own sake is gross, unhealthy, and leads to mental despair. Even if you wind up dating for years, it's okay to be very selective about who you sleep with, and anyone who is put off by that is not really worth your time anyway. Dating is totally fine but you don't have to sleep with everyone. Your office job is not only not that important, but very replaceable. Don't get sucked into working for toxic people who convince you that being very dedicated to a job where you shuffle paper or money around is meaningful. It pays the bills, and that's useful, but it should not be the core of your identity. Alcohol is not your friend and if you cannot drink in moderation, or find yourself drinking to forget, just stop. Sobriety is cool. Travel is amazing, do it as much as you can, but also don't feel too bad if you can't travel as much as others do -- some people really are financing the whole thing on credit cards and it will come back to bite them. Travel on the cheap and take advantage of being in a stage of life where that's pretty easy. |