The singles vs couples divide in your 30s

"Your family comes first, but your friends shouldn't come last."

“You’ll find them when you stop looking/least expecting it.”

It’s the general sentiment of coupled-up friends as we hit our 30s and the divide somewhat cleanly splits off — those in relationships, and those who are single. Sometimes there are the grey areas of those who have left relationships, dip a toe into being single, but more often than not move on easily enough within the year. Is it easier to go from relationship to relationship, even after some months on your own, than it is to transition into a relationship after years of being single? It’s something I wonder often.

Across TikTok right now there’s a growing trend of people speaking out about how dire modern-day dating is. This shouldn’t be a surprise if you’re subscribed to my newsletter, considering it’s been going for four years and I think it’s touched on many of the faults with modern-day dating and apps. But now the problem is hard to ignore: singles don’t want to be on apps anymore, but it feels impossible to meet people IRL unless you’re at a bar… and over in another corner, our coupled-up friends, bless their souls, are saying “you’ll find them when you least expect it.”

As you get into your 30s and into the next stages of life, whatever they may be, the dating pool does significantly shrink. Sure, my friends and I joke about the first wave of divorced men, but tbh, that’s already happened and they’re coupled-up again. Sometimes friends say, “maybe you’ll meet someone through a friend” and I ask those friends what single men they know that they’d set me up with and they shudder in response as they try to think of someone. This is absolutely no judgement on people in relationships, but the landscape of dating has changed so much even over the time I’ve been doing this newsletter, that if you haven’t been single in the periods of the 2020s, you simply wouldn’t be in a place to understand just how hard it has become.

In my last edition, I touched on the fact I had come to a place of peace that my life may not pan out the way I once imagined, and I may not find that partnership I am looking for. But it’s hard sometimes to describe the feeling of losing that potential. Sometimes I’m sad. Sometimes it’s lonely. Sometimes I’m excited to be completely untethered and not knowing what adventure is around the corner.

The one thing that does naturally happen when you get into a relationship, is you have a sudden security of having a “person”. That person you can rely on to go travelling with, go out to dinner because you crave Thai, drag you out of bed to go on a run, drive one hour to some secluded beach you saw on TikTok just because you want to take them on an adventure, maybe a person you’ll save up money and buy a house with, adopt a dog, have a child. I think sometimes what coupled-up people forget or maybe don’t factor in, is what it’s like to be navigating this phase of life and not having that person or that future.

I don’t want all of this to get twisted: I love love, I love watching my friends find their people, and I love that so many people in my life have solid relationships that I find inspiring and give me hope for the future. But there is an often unspoken loss single people face, particularly as we get older and the dating pool shrinks, and that’s the loss of our friends as we’re put down a rung on the priority ladder and their attention inevitably shifts to perhaps those more traditional life stages.

Generally speaking, I’ve been the single friend for many years. The good time gal. The one people reach out to when they break up with their partners and decide they want to go out and expand their lives and social circles, and then I watch them go back to long-term relationships and contact naturally, slowly die off as their priorities shift. I’ve been the girl people message when they’ve had fights, arguments, near-splits, the faux therapist, the one who sits over dinner and gives out relationship advice I should probably not even be dreaming of doing as, really, I’m not that well-equipped in the dating department.

I am also one of the lucky ones. I have single friends in the same boat, and every day I think about how fortunate I am to have those people in my life, especially through the ebbs and flows of romantic situations and relationships. I’ve got friends who have been single the same amount of time as me, friends who don’t want kids, and friends who will prioritise friendship as much as their romantic relationships. When my sister moved interstate earlier this year, it was the saddest I had felt in a long time (sorry to be dramatic, BUT THAT’S JUST HOW I FELT!). It was new friends I met through work who were there to pick up the pieces and distract me from that sadness, and friends I’ve known since uni and high school who could relate to how hard that situation was for me, knowing how close we are.

I’ve been thinking for months about how the divide deepens in our 30s, for those who are in relationships vs those who are single, not out of a place of resentment, but one of pure gratitude for my friends who show up. What I may have lacked in life in romantic luck, I’ve truly lucked out with so many good friends.

But it’d be unrealistic to say there isn’t a divide of sorts for those of us navigating our lives alone: for the hens, weddings, baby showers, kids birthday parties, and other life milestones, there’s a disparity of sorts and it’s not about money lost or gift-giving because I don’t think anyone gives a shit about that deep down. It’s about realising your single friends are also people who are navigating life in a different way, and aren’t just there for entertainment’s sake to update happily coupled-up people on their tragic first date stories or to “live vicariously through”. Sometimes we don’t always have a fallback person. Sometimes it’s just bloody tough doing life on your own.

I took to Instagram recently to ask people about whether they feel a divide as they approach, or live their 30s lives and I thought I’d share some of the answers.

“Your family comes first, but your friends shouldn’t come last,” one person said to me. “We’re not all working towards the same traditional milestones (marriage, kids etc),” another single person said. “But it’s on them to find ways to also celebrate our achievements.”

“I’m not ‘lucky’ that I’m free, I’m fucking lonely,” someone else shared. “Dating apps are actually more harmful to your self-esteem than they are sexy and fun.”

“I’m happy for them always, and here for both of them as individuals and as couples,” another stated.

To end, one of my friends, Gyan Yankovich, wrote an amazing book that was released this year Just Friends, which explores the importance of friendship in our lives and how so often weight is placed on romantic and familial connections over the people we genuinely have chosen as our own family. Arguably, our friendships are one of the most influential and important aspects of our lives, and we don’t all stop to consider them deeply enough. Myself included.

So anyway, if you want a book recommendation, find out more about Just Friends here.

And I’ll be back with some terror dating screenshots soon xo