10 Awesome Reasons Why Dating In Your 30s Is Different, In A Good Way

by Sejal Parikh · August 18, 2015

Let’s start off with the big one: if you trashed the lessons that dating in your 20s brought you along with the used condoms, well…dating in your 30s isn’t going to be any rad! On the other hand, if you did go about dating in your 20s with a cipher, chances are, you have learnt most of the codes in there already. The most important one being ‘calm the eff down’ code.

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Yes, when you are hopping from one potential date to another in your 20s or simply going out with a guy coz he looks like a partial Bradley Cooper, you likely end up in a ratty futon on the floor with no note that contains his digits or even a trace of ever seeing the poor man’s Bradley lookalike again! But when you transition from those crazy, mad hopping days to dating in your 30s – by doing more than adding candles to your birthday cake and ending up in luxe sheets with breakfast-in-bed – you have likely picked up the strewn clues about yourself, how you put yourself out there, your needs, your desires, and more importantly, the dating process itself along with your clothes lying on the floor! And thus, are at the top of your game!

Suggested read: I am 30 and on my way to understanding love!

Dating in your 30s is hard. It is a far cry from the easy, good-natured dating in high school and the zany drunken adventures of your 20s. But it is also so much better – coz you finally graduated magna cum laude from the classroom of love that were your 20s, despite drunken homework, and epic failure on love projects and assignments.

And just when you thought it couldn’t be any better – well… surprise! Not only is dating in your 30s the IT-thing because Science confirms a higher life expectancy and dating, settling, being married, and having kids – all in your 20s – is no longer a dominant social code but also because:

1. You have your priorities set straight

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While you did spend your 20s building on that budding career, traveling, and of course, having fun, you do not exactly draw in a serious relationship – coz you weren’t looking for one nor were you ready for it. However, as finding love in your 30s becomes a priority, your focus shifts from career, friends, and fun to building a connection with someone and sustaining it. This renewed approach, post the attainment of an enveloping security in other facets of life, helps direct positive energy into attracting potential partners.

2. Your dating process has evolved

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You have no reason to lie. We have all dated someone in our 20s whose obvious red flags we were either too blind to see or too caught up in ‘luovvee’ to recognize. Therefore, in our denial or ignorance, we ended up being in a dead-end relationship for weeks, months… err… years too! Yes, you too! But how you date in your 30s does not skip the initial screening, is ever-on-alert mode for the red or even yellow flags, and detects them early on. This way, the selective dating in your 30s helps weed out any chances of investing your precious time and effort in a place where they are likely to go waste!

3. You know your worth

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While the 20s may have seen you engage in quite self-destructive patterns of attachment to partners who sooner or later left, they all ‘left’ you with a heightened sense of awareness of self. By the time you hit the big number, you knew your worth and wouldn’t settle for less. So, finding love in your 30s came with a birthday present of knowing your worth and denying handing out discounts to those unworthy!

4. The only thriving basis for dating is compatibility

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As the dating pool shrinks and the requisites on the checklist finds more items than the singular entry ‘hot,’ the happiness that comes with dating in one’s 30s increases manifold. You meet people who share in your goals and interests, forge meaningful connections, and learn so much more along the way.

5. You know much more about what makes relationships tick

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When one is dating in one’s 30s, one does not make the mistake of assuming that the relationship will always be tension-free. As such, one avoids the major reason relationships for people in their 20s fall out – the urge to jump ship when tension and conflict creep in. This mature approach in one’s 30s helps avert the tendency to switch partners whenever any disagreement, angry outburst, ego clash or tiff stemming from fear crops up. Wading through the stormy waters of these hard times helps make the relationship you are building in your 30s stronger.

6. You are in no rush – either to hop between the sheets or walk down the aisle

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When you are thirty and dating, you are already done and dusted with your share of sowing wild oats! And you’ve had your fair share of meeting and ‘loving’ quite a few of those you did the ‘sowing’ with. So, when you put yourself out there in your 30s, you aren’t looking for a raunchy romp nor a chance to grab the next decent lad who’d look great next-to-you in a wedding picture- which is why you are all the more sure of finding something REAL.

7. The dating pool is so much more refreshing

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Any single and dating 30-year-old has seen more of the world as a functional adult than a twenty-something which means they have, in all likelihood, become an individual with a clear idea of their life’s goals and their own developed tastes, hobbies, set of friends, and priorities. As such, they do not come to the dating game with a need to make their life ‘whole.’ Adults in their 30s have built a happy, full life for themselves and are simply looking to share it with someone who shares in their life’s principles. This approach is way more invigorating than the drink-and-dance-away date nights of your twenties.

8. Rules don’t mean squat

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Dating rules fall by the wayside as one skips the long drive, wine-and-dine, and drink-and-dance-away dates in one’s 20s to sit in a peaceful café and have a stimulating conversation with a thirty-something. People over 30 are way past the three-day rule or other flimsy concocted lies people tell to justify their behavior and slip it up by blaming it on the book. Thirty-year-olds have burned the book and crossed the bridge because they have learnt better and wish to use the knowledge to find someone who has done the same.

9. You can winnow out the wrong people so much sooner

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While most men and women in their 20s make the mistake of choosing their partners on a fatal assumption – men on the fact that women are likely to remain the same, and women on that the men will likely transform into the ‘ideal’ version in their head – dating in your 30s is purged of such fallacies. You know which person out there is a douchebag and you can likely tell the ones looking for an organically grown connection from these creeps who are perhaps just looking to get laid.

10. You believe in LOVE

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Because you know it’s out there and you are worth it!

So cheer up fellas… coz if you are twenty-something and crying and wondering about what you did wrong, you’d be looking back to this day when you hit the thirty-milestone and saying, ‘dodged that bullet!’ 😀

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