Dating, Plato once said, is like enlisting in a gangbang of rejection, lizard-tongue make-outs, and 2 am doom-swiping. I spent the first half of my 30s in a long-term relationship. Having now been single for over a year, a friend recently asked me the seemingly innocuous question: So, what are you looking for? Obviously, looking for love at any age has its issues. But for those of us who are allegedly fully fledged adults, I want to know: Does dating get harder after 30?
I love getting dressed up, sitting at a bar with a dirty martini, and getting to know someone new. I love the tension of, Will we kiss? Will I go back to his place to find the fridge stocked with more than just IPAs and mushroom chocolates? The dream! However, dating after 30 does bring new challenges. My friend Lauren Garroni recently got into a great relationship after years of being jaded about dating. She also has a lot of opinions about modern courtship.
While my list of dating criteria gets longer with age see: paragraph two , Lauren says her years of dating fatigue actually stripped her standards to the bare essentials. Do you have a job? And have you asked me a single question on this date? That last one resonated with me. Turns out, an awkward silence is an excellent opportunity to continue monologuing about yourself.
My friend Jake recently turned Call me in a decade. When that sentiment comes from someone my age, it cuts a lot deeper. I get it. And as we get older, everything seems more consequential. I keep finding myself thinking, Oh, God, he wears those little no-show socks, or, he quotes Jordan Peterson, or, he has a weird dick—can I deal with this for the rest of my life?!
The question is: Where are they hiding? And how do smart businesspeople recruit great workers? They poach them. Personally, my current romantic strategy is a little different. Another advantage to dating after 30 is that, as you get older, you become less of an idiot. In your 20s you have more time to waste, and you also vaguely hate yourself, which is a dangerous combo. The amount of psychotic behavior I put up with in my 20s—and that I projected myself—is actually embarrassing.
