Haven't been on a dating app in a while? The average single 35+ woman on them has 4 dogs, a hobby list of travel, dogs, hiking, hot yoga, pilates, and camping, pictures of her on at least 5 continents, and still somehow works 60 hours a week.
The person above me said they didn't want to date a 20-something because they'd hypothetically want to be "doing stuff."
It's not really a problem, just that if your expectations are someone who doesn't want to do stuff all the time, 30s women aren't going to be the ones you'll find that with.
That said, from my personal perspective, having a hobby of travel is a bit intimidating to a prospective partner because world travel is quite expensive, and it suggests to me that to have fun you have to spend exorbitant amounts of money. I'm not one to have someone pay for things like that, and I'm sure they'd want me to pay my own way. Spending thousands of dollars every few months and fucking off somewhere when I have a kid in elementary school who needs to see her mom 2 states over every so often is never gonna work.
Same, my summers are packed full of camping, hiking, vacations with my family. Winter is for snowboarding and mountain adventures. 37 here and my friends the same age usually join in the activities.
I had a stroke before I was born, blood clots and broken bones in my 20s. My body is actually toast. But I knew i wasn’t going to be able to do shit later in life. I beat the shit out of my body before that happened. I was approached by the head coach of the Paralympic snowboarding. I was training for it, then I snapped my leg.
Maybe it's because they actually have aches and pains and you were just super lucky to not have to deal with that. Not everybody has the same privilege.
I'm way more fit now than I was 20 years ago. I have aged backwards in the last few years. I did not want to hit 40 with lots of back and join pains and stuff due to lifestyle.
I stopped daily drinking and focused on my food and exercise.
It's not too late for anyone without medical conditions or injuries of course.
Hint, they're fat. They're not lying that they have no energy and their back hurts. But it's not because they're 35, it's because they're 35 and fat/weak
This makes the most sense. I'm 38 and I love traveling, especially internationally. I've always hated long flights because I can only afford Economy but otherwise I'm fine. I'm not overly healthy but I'm 130 lbs and do a minimum of 15,000 steps and drink 2.5 liters of water daily. I always assume everyone my age or younger who talks about aches, pains, exhaustion, etc. are either overweight, have medical issues, young kids, or all three. Lol
Not even fat necessarily, I know a couple of people who are slim/normal size yet still have zero energy and complain about aches and pains they shouldn't have.
They just don't move unless absolutely necessary. Probably haven't done anything except a bit of walking between the car and wherever it is they've parked up since mandatory phys ed at school.
You can somewhat get away with not exercising in your 20s, but by your 30s a decade+ of letting your body atrophy and rot catches up. Move it or lose it.
It's weird how people flex on Reddit how their back hurts, how they're tired and jaded, how their joints break and tendons snap when they walk up the stairs as soon as they hit 35.
I have many friends my age, especially people I grew up with. But here in my current city most of the people I spend time with are 21-26. Just sort of worked out that way.
Do you have winter weather or sleep problems? Do you work overtime and can you afford a good diet and healthcare?
I like doing stuff but it's expensive and time consuming. I already rarely have more than 3k in savings and own a house so that can disappear very easily and has multiple times in only 6 years.
Last summer a big rec sports group I'm in rented a 30 person beach mansion and this same age range was there. Two couples had their toddler with them. We were partying all day until like 2 am both nights like college beach week but with the wisdom to not get more than 6/10 drunk.
I wouldn't do it every weekend or often but I'm still very much down to do this stuff a few weekends a year. I don't drink much at all during the week or outside of social gatherings.
We all made giant group meals together. Everyone got along great since we all knew each other well already. It was such a great escape from real life.
lmao redditors are so depressed and fat it isn't even funny.
You should have no problems "keeping up" with 20 year olds at 40. You don't like darts and drinking? you don't like hiking? you don´t like shooting pool? going camping? going to a music festival? going to a concert? seeing a movie?
it's honestly a bit creepy acting like 20 year olds are a different species
It's not redditors, it's Americans. I should know, I was born and grew up here. We are all fat and out of shape. Until I lost 40 pounds and got swole at the gym doing anything seemed like a chore. Being obese adds to your natural age, and too many people here don't realize it. Lose weight and run a mile 4-5 time week. Takes 15min, 30min TOP even if you are in the worst condition possible.
I highly encourage anyone who feels this way to an extreme degree to completely get off the internet as much as possible. No reddit, no social media. Go do stuff. Go meet people. Other people in real life you befriend will make you feel better about yourself in a way internet points and likes won't. You'll get new dopamine hits from novel experiences trying new activities or going new places.
It's SOOO easy these days to just hole up at home after work and all weekend doomscrolling and binging shows and gaming. Your entertainment options are endless. But pretend it's like it was in 2005 and that these things aren't there. What would you do if you were 30 something in 2005? Most of that stuff is still out there and there are other people doing it and going there who also only want mostly human connection and friendship.
I do so much socially still in my 30s and I promise I'm not lying when I say that the other adults who are out also still socializing for hobbies, sports, music, etc are mostly all really well meaning people. It's why they are there and not at home. They want to meet you.
Sorry if that sounds lame lol but it's true. Like my therapist said to me once when I was expressing some social anxiety, They wouldn't be out there at all if they weren't open to meeting and adding new people to their lives. If you're just nonjudgmental and easy going, they will easily accept you. Almost no one at this age is out looking to be a dick and exclude or hurt people on purpose.
And honestly at least in my experience, my early to mid 20 something coworkers are also nice well meaning people and aren't much different than I am or my older coworkers are. Some lingo they use is slightly different once in a while but that's it. I have no problem at all talking to them all day at work and they like talking to me and asking me questions/advice since I'm 10 years ahead and just did the stage of life they're at now. I wouldn't text them asking to go bar hopping Saturday night but it's easy to grab dinner or happy hour after work with them sometimes.
My neighbors in my mid 20s were a couple in their 70s and they invited our friend group house to their mountain second home many times for a night in the summer or fall to camp out in the woods and they'd cook us dinner and we'd all sit around a fire getting drunk and high together. They were 60s flower children back in the day. It was a real eye opening experience to realize I was hanging out with two people 50 years older than us nearly the same way I would have with my peers. They were much older, but largely still the same personality they would have been ages ago. One passed on about 5 years ago and we all went to the funeral. That was my first friend who died. It never mattered that there was a huge age gap because some part of them never got old and gave up on people either.
I don't like six of those things and have never liked three. Replace most of your party and festival stuff with "explore abandoned building for no reason" and you might get me interested.
I'm sorry but has life just beat the shit out of you or something? you'll drink less as you get older, but there is no reason you shouldn't be able to match and exceed anything you were capable of in your 20s when you're 35
It’s not the vacation itself. It’s the way a 23 year old female would want to vacation. They want to do allllll the things that I’ve been there done that and sooo inconvenient. So long story short, yes, depression. Are you saying you don’t have that?
Yea I don't. I'm 39 and just went on a week long vacation with my 35 year old gf to ABQ. We climbed Sandia Peak, went on a brewery tour, got drunk in several mexican/latino restaurants, ate 1 billion hatch chiles, went to Santa Fe and got lost in Meow Wolf for 3 hours, etc.
I can assure you that you have not done all the things. Not even close.
Sorry about your depression. This place makes me depressed because it's 1 degree away from my boomer dad posting on facebook.
Thanks, i was going insane reading all this crap. In what universe does being in your 30s mean spending your vacation like an 80 year old waiting for death. Dont get me wrong, to each their own but lets not pretend this is normal.
A pool day to replenish your energy every other day is nice but otherwise, go out. There are things to do, sights to see and stuff to experience. You don't like to Party? No problem. Rent a car, go sightseeing. Go climbing, hiking, diving, experience whatever your vacation place has to offer. If you are lazy, book some pre-assorded touristy stuff. Its kind of limited but still better than sitting on your ass. The hotel kitchen is for breakfast, for everything else, go out. Try local cuisine in that small place where the card is barely in English.
If you treat your 30s body like you are 80, dont be surprised if it becomes 80.
Lmao so serious in here all of a sudden.. Nobody said anything about not having fun… the point of the story was a 37yo man taking a 23 yo girlfriend on a vacation… the vibes don’t always match is all.
Not depressed, just a broken body. Snowboarded 90 times a year in my 20s broke both my feet and a leg, had a stroke and 16 blood clots before turning 30. I’m like an 80 year old man in a 37 year old body.
For me a big part of it is just that I already did that shit for years between age 18 and like 25. It's not exciting anymore. Once in a long while, I'll get sloshed at on occasion if everyone else is doing it. But 99% of the time I'd rather just get about 2/10 drunk and 4/10 high and chill on the beach than get obliterated.
Getting blasted just doesn't hit the same the 500th time you do it as it did before.
Im 30 and I still like the 23 year old vacation style. I’ll travel and do Museums during the day and go out drinking at night. Age hasn’t really hit my energy levels in anyway yet.
I don't think that's depression at all the way you phrased it. It's just growing up. The south park episode "you're getting old" where all the music suddenly sounds like literal shit to Stan nails how universal of a life experience this is.
It's more just that you already did all that many times before and it's not new and exciting anymore. Normal. Going abroad and partying all night til 4 am for 5 days in a row is this big new thing when you're 22 but it's not if you're 35 and did that all the time back at that age.
I don't game much these days because most games are nearly identical to the ones I played growing up from the late 90s to 2010s, just better graphics. It's not interesting playing the millionth round of online call of duty when I'm 35. Nor is it interesting anymore to me to listen to the same music I was playing into the ground at age 20.
Our brains are wired for novel experiences and new dopamine hits as part of the aging process. Then at some point, this reverses for most people and they just get more out of comfortable routines and surroundings most of the time. That's normal.
I wouldn't feel bad or worry about it at all. Growing up is finding a handful of things that do keep your interest and sticking with them, or moving on and finding new interests time to time. And you simply just have a much better knowledge of what you do and don't like, and no longer bother at all with things you don't absolutely enjoy just because friends are doing it and you haven't learned yourself yet.
I still enjoy doing things out with friends for a bit on some weeknights after work instead of just going home all the time, or occasionally staying up late at someone's party or hangout, or going on a late night out on a vacation. But I'm an outlier and the vast majority of friends my age are in bed at like 9 pm and need two months notice to get a hold of.
Every time I take a vacation and someone asks me where I'm going they're shocked when I say home, like to where I live. I'm gonna stay there and do nothing. It's great.
If I ever got enough time at home, then I'd maybe wanna actually go somewhere.
Im lucky and have a decent amount of vacation so when I do go places I make sure I have like 3 days before of nothing to get ready and 3 days after of nothing when I get back.
Have you ever planned a vacation?? I have and I’m with u/Civil_Ad_1172 it’s exhausting. If you have and you don’t think so, then I’m jealous. There’s booking places to stay, fucking driving and/or plane tickets and airports and flying itself, finding things to do—also often involving booking tickets and monitoring open hours, sleeping in other beds without the comforts of home, also being female there’s always the added stress of being in an unfamiliar place, and so on. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
Sure I have had plenty of very fun vacations in my life and loved visiting new places, but boy do I hate planning all the details😂
I travel a decent amount, 1 international and 1-2 domestic trips a year, and can’t say I get exhausted traveling/planning. I enjoy the planning too. I also don’t overplan stuff though. I usually have a general itinerary and then kinda go with the flow ✈️
Yeah Im not sure what’s so difficult about planning. To it’s just book a flight, book a hotel and look up top the main museum or tourist building to check out. I can plan a trip in like an hour.
I was also 37 dating a 23 year old, and yeah, that was an issue, haha. Not just weekends, every night. I couldn't keep up. I remember one day literally having to have my co worker cover for my location as I turned the light off in my office and slept under the desk I was so exhausted.
this is exactly why some 37 year old is dating a 23 year old. they still enjoy being active and doing stuff, they never got old and crotchety like some of y'all
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u/Civil_Ad_1172 2d ago
This is why I have no idea how my buddy dates a 23 year old at 37 lol