Being single at 30

Salamu

Being single in your 30s is not fun. It’s the time in your life where a chilled night having a few drinks with friends over dinner looks way more appealing than getting shit faced at a club.  All of a sudden, the music at

Great lyrics bro! Took you all day to come up with it.

these places are too loud, young thundercats are running around trying to make a name for themselves either as the next big MMA fighter of his generation or the next big drinker of his generation, the music that these thundercats listen to (that Hardwell Tomorrow Land bullshit) has absolutely no soul, and it takes you three days to recover from a hangover.

These are some of the challenges that being single at 30 presents. But there is another challenge, a far deeper one.

What type of woman do you go after at 30? If you are targeting the age group of 26 years and under, you will still have to go to clubs and listen to that Hardwell Tomorrow Land bullshit music that has no soul. And do you really want to be that 30 year old at the club? If you are targeting the age group of 26 to 30, you will find them at a hipster bar drinking a craft beer trying to ‘define their life’ during their quarter life crisis. And if you are targeting the age group of over 30, they come with the challenge of divorces and quite possibly kids.

We live in interesting time my friends.

So…if the prospect of going to a club and a hipster gathering scares the shit out of you, what’s left? INTERNET DATING.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are a lot of internet dating success stories. I’m just giving you my point of view. My 8 things you have to come to terms with when internet dating:

11)      There is no such thing as a free lunch. You will be expected to pay for internet dating. Yes there are free sites like OK Cupid. But the decent ones will cost you.

22)      Be prepared to scrape the bottom of the barrel. A supermodel or a cute girl can pick up a guy standing in the line at the Department of  Home Affairs. All she needs to do is flash him a smile and lick her lips seductively. A Plain Jane or a girl who is not looked at twice at school will be on the internet. Don’t go onto the net expecting to find a supermodel or a cute girl.

33)      Be prepared to encounter psycho’s. There is only one other reason that a decent looking girl will be on

the internet. She’s mad. This girl has escaped from a mental institution and is completely Loony Tunes. She might be relatively normal around you, but she has regular imaginary conversations with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam.

44)      Be prepared to enter the Twilight zone. And no, this is not the Twilight zone of teenage porn vampires and werewolves. This is the Steven Spielberg Twilight Zone of freakiness. You must remember, to date on the internet, you must lose a bit of shame. So, be prepared for weird requests. I met a girl on Tinder and we got talking. Not even 10 whatsapp messages later she tells me her prepaid internet is up and asks me to by some for her. And then she still gave me shit because I asked her how she can do this after only starting to talk to me.

55)      They will be needy. Sometimes needy as F##k. Because of points two and three above, there is a good chance that these girls will be needy. I met a girl on OK Cupid and we got talking. And it was nice for the first few days having someone to talk to, you know, to get you through the long day at work. But there are times when you don’t want to talk to a person who sits with their phone in their hands waiting desperately for you to reply to them. And when you don’t chat to them EVERY SINGLE DAY…THE WHOLE DAY you get messages like: Did I do something wrong? We don’t chat as often as we did. And then when you don’t answer her because you are driving….you get 15 messages where there are just question marks (?)

66)      You will be asked stupid questions. As much as I love technology, it is a curse at times. It is definitely a curse on relationships. But before you venture out and meet the girl from the internet in person, you have to chat on social media first. The same girl who asked me if she did something wrong once asked me if she was awesome. Now I mentioned to her before what she was awesome to talk to because we had a lot in common. But I don’t feel that there is a need to tell a person that they are awesome every day unless you are dating them and are serious about them.

77)      Don’t expect the perfect woman. Ok. This applies to both real dating and internet dating. Just like the

perfect guy is a unicorn, the perfect woman is a unicorn. A mythical creature! But this is even worse with internet dating. A girl you meet at a social event usually attends social events and has a relative idea on how to carry herself in such environments. A person you meet on the internet does not have this skill. Be prepared for awkward silences, the dreaded one word answers to questions like: yes, no, ok. And don’t expect to talk for hours on end without stopping. More like, be prepared to sit in silence for hours upon end without talking.

88)      Make sure you are on the same page with things. Interests are funny things. Many people share interests, but there are some people who have specifically unique interests that cannot be shared. I have very unique interests. I love sport to the extent that I am a fanatic about it. I am also very interested in ancient civilizations. Now to find a girl that has the same level of interest as me is hard. And if you cant. You will be able to communicate for the first week, and then it’s the one word answers.

Relationships are hard work at the best of times, but to date the female version of Sheldon Cooper is another beast altogether. Internet dating is definitely not for everyone. One thing you do need is a well-planned exit strategy.  Talk and get to know her on whatsapp or BBM. There is a great function on these apps called: Block contacts.

It’s like bug spray on steroids. Because sometimes you use bug spray and they just keep coming back at you. With block contacts, only you can unblock them, and why would you if they are bat shit crazy?

Is there hope for people who are single in their 30s? Of course there is. You just can’t use the same tactics you did when you were 20. At 20, you wanted to bang anything that had beautiful eyes, a cute smile, and licked her lips seductively. At 30 you need to be a bit more selective. Look for inner beauty as opposed to outer beauty. Because if shed is smoking hot…but single at 30, someone kicked her to the curb for a reason.

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!