30 and Single Again from A Guy’s Perspective
Iona is a Wellness Coach specialising in relationships and dating.…
When I was a little kid, I had big dreams: I had a plan to go to Harvard and then become a movie star while playing professional baseball at the side. I kept that dream in my head for a while until mid-way through my time in high school, when I began to realize that perhaps going to Harvard might not come true after all. Still, I soldiered on and applied to my local university – it was the best in the city so in my head, I told myself “Going to the Harvard equivalent in my city isn’t bad at all” so I became satisfied with my lot. Soon, the dreams of being an actor and a professional baseball player slowly left the clutches of dreams and then I started telling myself, “Working in an office after graduating isn’t bad at all”
This is how I felt about being 30 and single. It’s been years since I’ve had a long and meaningful relationship that lasted more than a season. When we were young, we all had the Harvard dream of marrying that special person and living happily ever after. Of course, some of your friends got lucky on their first try and now have married their highschool sweet heart. They call themselves lucky but you call them sad for not having the chance “To get to know all kinds of different people”
When you’re twenty something and you’re single, it doesn’t really bother you because you’re too busy abusing your body and having fun meeting other people. When you’re thirty and you’re single, you start worrying that you’ll end up the creepy old guy at the club wearing a leather jacket. I don’t know how many people ever saw themselves single at 30 when they were younger. When I was a kid, I somehow always believed that I’d have someone by the time I’m an old guy.
Given what I’ve just talked about, I think the question on everyone’s mind is, “What went wrong?” How did you deviate so far away from the life script? It was a simple concept: you grow up, you meet someone and then you marry them.
I can bitch and whine about the pitfalls of being 30 and single all day, but I’d rather ask “What went right?” Ever think about how your life would be like if you stayed with your previous girlfriend? Just a few decades ago, it would have been an exercise in creative thinking but thanks to technology today, we actually get to see our alternate reality simply by Facebook stalking our exes:
“She still wears that stupid bonnet.”
“I see she still forces people to go to Disneyland every summer.”
“I can’t believe she still wears Ed Hardy – she really was a female douchebag.”
Did it ever cross your mind that being 30 and single might actually be a blessing? Are you the same person you were 10 years ago? I hope not. I was such a weeny boy in my 20’s – I didn’t have a clue about life, about how to be a man and how to carry myself. What kind of a person would I have married back then? What kind of life would I have now?
Thinking back to my childhood dreams and aspiration of being a Harvard grad/actor/professional baseball player – I can’t help but laugh: I can’t believe I’ve made such a big mistake: I stopped believing in my dreams.
When do classes start?
Written by Mark S
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Iona is a Wellness Coach specialising in relationships and dating. She works with single women to write their own love stories.