To think you don’t need to live a particularly “uncomfortable” life to be happy?

[IWasScaredToBeHeld]

Inspired by another thread about a 27 year old who doesn’t go clubbing etc.

im 26 and it really got me wondering.

my evenings are spent going to the gym, having a nice long hot shower and then reading (at this time of year, in front of the fire!). I spend my weekends meal prepping, seeing friends for coffee and relaxing. I go on holidays but they’re usually a city break to do something, not anything particularly challenging. I’d not go backpacking around Asia, for example. I have a decent job with decent progression opportunities but nothing groundbreaking. I’d like a boyfriend but OLD is awful and there’s no sort of clubs I could go to to meet someone in my area.

AIBU to think that’s enough? I’m happy and content with where I am in life!

I got stuck in a very similar lifestyle in my 20s and I might have really benefitted from having a your attitude to it OP. For me I just felt a near constant resentment at what I felt I was missing out on social experience wise.

I'm also a bit cynical about going out of my comfort zone. The odd step out when there is the potential for rewards yes but not just doing it for the sake of it.

I do think that you would benefit from some longer term thinking though. As you get older some choices will start to close off.

I’m happy to go out of my comfort zone - for things I want to do and I enjoy. So take next summer for example, I’m heading to the F1 alone. While I’m there i’ll go and meet up with people who are also there, etc etc. that is massively out of my comfort zone. But I am excited to do it.

im not going to, for example, go and backpack round Asia or anything like that because it just doesn’t interest me. I don’t want to spend months in hostels and on buses because that will be miserable, and all I will learn from it is that I do not enjoy hostels and I do not enjoy the humidity.

I think this is 100% fine. It wouldn't be fine if deep down you had a yearning to do stand-up comedy but never dared to sign up for a try out spot, or dreamed of hiking the Camino but made do with a local walk instead. But if this is what you most want, good for you. Far too many people undervalue contentment and the pleasures of a simple life.

But... if you want a boyfriend, you might need to tolerate the discomfort of some unsuitable dates before you meet a man you connect with, or sign up for an under 30s walking group etc to meet a like-minded man. Don't get so risk-averse that you narrow the chance to meet someone.

Another overreaction!
You're making up an argument in your own mind aren't you, I've never suggested you spend 6 months sleeping in a hostel 🤣

And I’m happy to do that! Never said I wasn’t. But after a really rough six years or so, I’m going to prioritise myself first, for a year or so.

Then what is your suggestion?

I remember at this age I'd have a lot of people encouraging me to do things I'd hate purely because of their belief in the power of going outside of your comfort zone. It was almost like a belief that if I suffered enough then the universe would give me something amazing.

It just seemed like creating anxiety for the sake of it to me with it not even having a clear aim half of the time.

I’ve never been particularly adventurous but it does sound quite boring and middle aged and you aren’t even married with children. Backpacking never appealed to me but baking bread and having a bath at home in my 20s wouldnt have been the height of fun for me.

That honestly feels like what people expect. That you have to be uncomfortable and unhappy to “harden” your character

I adore baking - in another life I’d have opened one of those at home baking companies during Covid, but I was too busy with uni! I could bake all day and be happy.

I'm 65 now. In my 20s I worked like stink, bought a flat and focused on my security. Lots of my friends said I was bonkers and should have more fun, nights out, and go backpacking to Aus and Thailand with them. By the time we were all mid thirties, married and with babies, they got quite snippy because I could give up work because I was sooooo lucky. No, I'd bought a flat, got promoted and saved up and married someone with a similar mindset.

My only advice @IWasScaredToBeHeld would be to join some stuff that's f2f. That's how you meet someone nice: choir, am dram, church, volunteer for a charity, political party, friends of the V&A, etc.

DH and I are off to South Africa in a couple of weeks, no rucksacks or roughing it 😀.

A lot of crappy men get snapped up quick too tbf and a lot of young women deal with the consequences of choosing bad partners in their youth when they get to their 30s and 40s.

You read it on here all the time - women who have been with their shitty husbands from age 25 who have just left them and their kids for a younger woman after 10-20+ years of marriage or men who barely lift a finger in the home despite both working.

Only three of my friends are divorced, one met her ex in her late teens and married about 21. The other met her first partner and father of her child at similar age and split up after he cheated. She then met someone in her late 20s who she married in her early 30s and now divorced in her late 30s. Only
the third one was in her mid 30s when she met and married a man soon after .

Unfortunately (some) women are often focused on being chosen rather than being selective and this applies at any age.
So what I’ve seen is it’s often (not always) the cocky over confident men who realise they want a wife to serve them asap, who are marrying young.

A lot of the best guys I know from uni married in late 30s.

I think a good skill is to figure out a polite response when given bad advice. I could have done with being better at this when I was in my 20s. My biggest regret for that time was that I tried so hard to do things that didn't do anything to help me and I wish I'd spent more on things like learning a craft or activities that I could do on my own.

I think I’ve nailed the thanks but no thanks. My cousin emigrated and the suggestion from my family is always that I go to the country she’s emigrated to and spend six months to a year on a working holiday there. I just don’t see the appeal at all! So I’ve had to get pretty good at saying no

That sort of travel didn't appeal to me either. I remember thinking how all I wanted was to be able to create a life for myself that could be long term. Going away somewhere for 6 months and then returning to all the same problems that I already had didn't make sense to me.

Yeah if I go on holiday I want it to be for a holiday. Not to work. I am looking at my local rambling club, but I do worry that it’ll be full of older people because that’s all my town seems to be!

I think this notion of ‘travel or you’ll regret it’ is a little overblown. I did travel in my 20s and lived abroad but it isn’t for everyone and doesn’t make people who do it any better. Sometimes it was pretty rubbish. I also saw a lot of unhappy people, Now my idea of bliss is a luxury all inclusive.

The thing I do think it’s important though is to focus on career and building up skills that you will draw upon for years. 20s are the time to push and take risks re work.

It’s an interesting one, I can see both sides of the coin. Personally I’m glad I went clubbing in my 20s, lived in London for years and did a little traveling including living abroad for a year. It was so important and life changing for me. I’m still close with some of those people I met abroad all those years ago. But then I understand it’s not for everyone.

I am also glad btw I did not touch drugs, get drunk or have casual sex and would have pushed back against anyone telling me to do. So I can understand the frustration of being told to do things you don’t want to because “YOLO” lol

I have mixed feelings on dating, in some sense I wish I dated more in my late 20s but on the other hand I feel I lacked the necessary discernment back then to have picked a good one so I would’ve put myself at a lot of risk.

I think it’s good you don’t feel pressured to go out and meet someone but you are making steps to find someone so you have the balance right there. I was probably too laid back about it but I think part of that was a deep fear that I would choose wrong and I’d seen a lot of my childhood friends ruin their life with shitty men from age 18-25.

I remember having similar feelings about my town at your age. Once I was married and not living at home I felt differently about socialising with people of different ages but it's harder when your a living with your parents twenty something. I remember desperately wanting a peer group that I could share similar experiences with.

The sudden end to your university years with COVID must have made this even harder.

Yes I think that’s exactly the case.

It wasn’t like we had time to apply for jobs in our uni city, and to organise that sort of thing. We finished one random Tuesday afternoon and had three days to decide whether we’d be going into lockdown in our accommodation or going home. I would have been the only one in an entire block of flats, which would have sent me insane, so I went home. All of my friends did too. I’d be happy to go and join my local rambling club, but I do think I’d stick out like a sore thumb! Everything within twenty five miles of me seems to be dedicated to over-60s and the retired community, and there’s nothing for young people.

I found the thread that prompted this really interesting because it was very typical of the mindset of my generation (Gen X). I have thought like this in the past but I am increasingly coming around to its limitations.

I do think its important to live single and independently for a period before settling down. Having children very young is very limiting in my view and restricts a lot of growth opportunities, particularly for young women. I would be quite upset if my DD chose to have children straight from school or university. I also think travel can be beneficial in lots of ways.

But the perspective of the poster in that thread suggesting that it was important to go to nightclubs every weekend and have lots of sex was very representative of Gen X with its hedonistic attitude to youth. The insistence that being young has to equal huge alcohol consumption, dabbling with drugs, festival culture and nightlife and loads of shagging will in future be looked upon ad a weird aberration.

So many people of my age (early 50s) now suffer from health issues directly resulting from heavy drinking, smoking and drug taking in their youth. Any young lifestyle which is interesting and varied but doesn’t involve hammering your brain and body is a good one in my opinion.

If I am and old fart so be it but I think Gen Z is much more sensible about the health risks of drinking and drugs, thankfully.

I think this is spot on. People are entitled to choose their life for themselves but I do share similar feelings about the wider impact.

I used to really enjoy clubbing. When I was 19! It used to be £25 for a decent night out. You could pre drink before, pay a fiver to get into a club and have two or three drinks and have a good time. The same clubs in my uni city are now charging £25 to get in, before any drinks. That plus the health impacts mean it’s just not worth it, in any way.

@IWasScaredToBeHeld

Dont get me wrong I loved clubbing and clubs (plus free parties and raves) were a huge part of my youth. It was a unique cultural moment (early 90s, rave scene) and I loved it although looking back I think the heavy drug taking and general hedonism which went alongside this was pretty self destructive.

I am very happy that there’s much more of a middle ground these days between “cool kids” and non cool kids (as defined by kids). The definition was always arbitrary and snobbish anyway but it also hid the fact that so much of fitting in was about your willingness to ingest lots of psychoactive substances (I am including alcohol in this).

I never developed serious issues with drugs or alcohol but more by accident than design and a lot of my contemporaries did. Although it was an interesting period to live through I really hope my daughter doesn’t get involved in a similar scene.

Whether it's enough or not depends on what your dreams are. I hated clubbing at 27, but I'd done a lot of it age 16-21. I did love travel and that was my main passion, so I tried to do as much of that as possible without actually going for long back packing trips. City breaks are great, I don't think you're missing out by doing the kind of travel you enjoy.

But if you have an ambition you should go for it now. I was 'too content' in my 20s career wise, and now have regrets that I wasn't more proactive and that I didn't do something different. Everyone is different though, and feeling happy is the most thing important thing.