Did anyone get to their late 20s/ early 30s and almost hit a sort of grief that your life hadn't turned out the way you thought?

[RachelBeing30]

I'm in a bit of a rough patch just now and being single is really part of it for me.

I always thought being in a relationship would just happen, that I'd meet someone at uni or at work and just hit it off. I have no delusions about my own attractiveness and I'd rather someone made me laugh than was 6'2 anyway.

I've had a great social life and I've done a bit of travelling with friends and a relationship has just not fallen into place for me like it seems to have done for everyone else. I'm just so sad. I'm watching all my friends drift into coupledom, mortgages, wedding planning and parenthood and I feel like I'm invisible or in this glass box watching.

I've been trying OLD and truthfully it's the worst thing I've ever done, yet it's the only way I've ever had a date.

Hobbies etc are the 'traditional' way of meeting someone and online dating is the 'modern' way of meeting someone

Not really. Online dating you are there to date. What hobby are you likely to meet someone also looking for love, similar age? It’s much less likely to happen that way.

Well, I've met people doing hobbies and I know that other people have too.

Admittedly, it probably depends on the hobby you choose to do, the number of people you encounter doing it and the ratio of men to women doing it.

If your hobby is patchwork quilting at the local church hall on a Tuesday evening, you're unlikely to meet someone. If you, for example, join a band and gig a lot; join a climbing centre or do a hobby with a large social element to it, the chances are far higher.

Just thinking, I've done the latter 3 and have been asked out through all of them.

I remember in my late 20s-early 30s thinking about my uni days age 18- 22 and it hitting me like a ton of bricks that my friends at uni were very focused on finding a mate while in school. It was their top priority and they did indeed find mates. Where else are you surrounded by so many potential partners? It never dawned on me to spend my college days focused on finding a mate. That would all come later I said to myself.....lol.

Not.

OldWomanSaysThis, I also wish I’d spent my uni days doing this. A husband would have made me much happier than the high 2.1 I got. I have completely missed the boat now.

noone I feel the same. Have a job I love and a partner and son I adore but we struggle financially. All my friends and peers own a house and seem so much more grown up I can’t see that ever happening for us x

Mid 30s I was down though, as I was married to guy I met at Uni with three much wanted kids, my dissatisfaction was around carer

I do think there are times of our lives when it’s easy to meet either romantic partners or friends.

I wasn’t looking to meet anyone at university – assumed after school I was too odd and unattractive and still got a 2:1.

I met a great bunch of friends after pfb was born we had to move for work – took a while felt horrible isolated during pg and immediately afterwards. However, when we moved I went out to groups and did everything I did before and nothing. Nearly everyone had grown up there or had family – they didn’t need more people in way I did. Now in another are kids are older and we’re out of catchment so it’s harder again. You put in more effort and get less back – it’s just harder.

I don’t think there are any magic solutions – more you’re out and about the more people and connections you make more you up your chances of meeting someone compatible.

I’ve been there. Was single until age 34. The loneliness is really tough along with the kind of expectation hovering over you that you need to be coupled up and a parent.
It made it easier that I had a group of friends who were also single.
Honestly though I’m glad I tried to make the most of being free and just accountable to me.
It has not been a bed of roses, my relationship and experience of motherhood. Health problems haven’t helped.
We’re probably good like a lot of families at seeming like everything is great. I think when you’re in a family you don’t want to bring the whole family down by sharing difficulties with everyone. But through no ones fault I have felt more lonely at times in my family than when I was single (although without the feeling of inadequacy that it is easy to feel as a single woman in your thirties that it is so easy to feel in this society).

I don’t mean to minimise what you are going through. I guess I’d just say try and enjoy bits of it (lie ins! Using annual leave to actually rest or do something nice for you!!) as every situation has its downsides.