For context, this is for me, my wife and my kid. $260/month for medical/dental/vision. Other companies I worked for was 5-6 times this and had absurdly high deductibles.

I know other countries will chime in about their free healthcare, but we don’t have that luxury here in the U.S. 😭

Not gonna let a bad mood ruin my streak and let me relapse. If you have a meme to cheer me up, I’d appreciate it though 😭

Can’t speak for anyone else but myself here, but my dating life has been an absolute ghost town since entering my thirties, just turned 33. I had a much easier time meeting women and getting laid in my twenties than I ever had in my thirties so far.

I was told for men they finally hit their stride in terms of finances, libido and maturity and more women would see you as valuable…it’s been the opposite for me. In my late twenties I was a disaster and still was able to regularly find women to go out with. Now in my thirties, I couldn’t find a date if she approached me and slapped me upside the head, despite the fact I’m more emotionally mature, in the best shape of my life and more outgoing than ever before. 😂

For those out there who are successfully dating or found a healthy relationship, how/where?

I hit the gym 2-4 days a week, I volunteer, I’ve joined hobby groups and singles mixers…nothing works. I’ve even tried the occasional bar night out with friends, both men and women and it just seems everyone keeps to themselves. Dating apps are an absolute dumpster fire and I’m just got tired of being ghosted and never messaged back.

SOMETHING broke in society after 2020 and nobody wants to talk about it.

And I'm not talking about masks, lockdowns, or COVID. I mean the FEELING of life.

Everything reopened. We went back to work. Restaurants filled up. Events came back. But somehow life still feels... different.

Years disappear faster. People feel more disconnected. Everything feels more expensive, stressful & rushed.

And somehow we're all constantly exhausted. I can't even explain exactly what we lost. I just know life before 2020 felt more ALIVE. But why!

When my alarm goes off for work in the morning, I genuinely fight the urge to cry. I find it physically and mentally difficult to pull myself out of bed in the morning. I’m a hybrid worker and it does feel easier on the days I don’t have to go in office so perhaps deep down it’s that I despise going into the office more. I do hate going into the office.

Anyhow I can’t fathom that I have to get up and get ready for work for at least another 20 years.

Two years ago, I started my current job thinking I’d be gone within six months. It was supposed to be something to pay the bills and give me a consistent paycheck while I recovered from being laid off at a job I poured 6 years into and a divorce from a 5 year marriage.

I work in sales, and I’m good at it. Like, genuinely. This job can almost feel like a cheat code if you know how to work it. But it’s also dependent on leads, the housing market, people answering their phones, and whatever changes management decides to make that month. I don’t want to be 35, still sitting on the phones and hoping everything lines up so I can make a good paycheck. I know I’m capable of doing more, but I’ve spent two years getting better at a job I never intended to stay in and I think watching the people around me has finally made me confront that.

One of my coworkers started around six months after I did. I remember when he was basically a broke kid living with his mom, driving a junk car, and just kind of figuring things out. Over the past couple of years, he became a top performer, got promoted, and got engaged to someone he seems genuinely happy and starting a family with. I see the videos of him and his fiancée, the engagement planning, the excitement, all of it. It’s beautiful. I’m happy for him. But it also makes me think about what I want.

I also want to be successful, have a career I’m proud of, come home to someone I love, build a family and feel like I’m actually creating something meaningful.

Another one of my closest friends at work is leaving for a better opportunity. He’s decided to commit to studying IT while working another job to pay his bills. He’s making a deliberate decision to build a different future, even if it means starting over in some ways. Everyone around me are making moves and starting families and buying homes and securing their future. Meanwhile, I feel like I’ve been caught in this cycle of working, paying bills, getting stressed about money, trying to make the next month better, and repeating the process.

Finally bought a car after going a year without one, which is a huge win for me. But I’m still living in an apartment I hate. My love life is messy. I’ve basically been surviving on takeout for years, barely taking care of myself properly, and I’ve even ended up in the hospital from severe dehydration and dangerously low blood sugar. I’m not saying my life is terrible. I have a job, a car, and things I’m grateful for. But I feel like I’ve been so busy surviving that I’ve neglected actually building a life I want to live.

I’ve been considering going back to school for mathematics. I’m interested in things like actuarial science, engineering, and data science. I’ve even thought about law school eventually. I want to explore something intellectually challenging, develop a skill set that gives me more stability, and have a career where my future isn’t so dependent on factors I can’t control. I don’t know exactly what I want to do yet, but I know I don’t want to stay where I am indefinitely.
I also want to get my finances together, move somewhere I actually enjoy living, develop healthy routines, build a community outside of work, and stop letting my entire life revolve around making money and navigating inconsistent relationships.

I’m almost 30, and I feel like I’m finally waking up to the fact that nobody is going to come along and organize my life for me. I don’t want to spend another two years talking about what I’m going to do without actually doing it.

So I want to hear from people who have experienced this. How old were you, what was the aha moment and what’d you do about it? Is life good now?

I’m (M23) and I just started my first full time job a couple months ago. In past internships, I feel like I’ve received unwanted relationships in the workplace, from both men and women (doesn’t matter but I’m straight). For example, in my most recent internship, a woman coworker I had met at a networking event for interns came across my Hinge profile and directly asked me on a date. I thought she was attractive, sure, but because of the stigma surrounding office relationships, I’m just uncomfortable with dating coworkers.

In that case, I just pretended like I never saw her like on Hinge. However, in my current role, I feel like I’ve been hit on by another coworker. She’s given me very light invitations to hang outside of work that seemed very low stakes to ignore. But she’s also started to text me to strike conversation. Every time I come into the office I see her, so I feel like I can’t ignore her texts. Again, it’s conflicting because I am attracted to her, but I feel uncomfortable. I feel like I’m wrestling with ethics and temptation.

In general, how do I manage these situations throughout my career? I feel like jumping the gun and explicitly rejecting them may cause hostility or awkwardness, but choosing to tolerate it creates its own issues.

Im in a dead end minimum wage job at 23. I fell for the scam that is college and majored in something i thought would be worthwhile but was really stupid in hindsight. Ive somehow locked myself out of every job a high school dropout can do from what i can tell given ive easily sennt out 1500 apps in the past 2 years and im still stuck here. People talk about what they want in life like settling down, having hobbies, growing old but i dont imagine ill make it to 40 with where i am and the state of the world. I just keep lying to myself that everything will be ok but i know deep down it wont. As soon as my family has had enough of me and makes me move out some day ill be as good as dead given i live in a rural area with no resources for the homeless (this is honestly probablly a good thing ultimately though so my suffering wont be dragged out).

I literally have zero plans for life or goals even out just 10 years from now, i really have no idea how ill live that long. Absolute best case scenario is i work minimum wage till i die at 80 all alone while being homeless and never being able to retire since retirement in general is becoming a thing of the past.

Do you remember being young and desperately wanting to become an adult?

I do.

I genuinely could not wait.

I thought adulthood meant freedom. I could go out whenever I wanted. I could make my own decisions. Nobody would be telling me what to do. I would have money. I would eat whatever I wanted.

And, if you grew up in an African home like I did, there was an even bigger incentive: more meat.

As a child, you were looking at that one piece of meat in your stew thinking, “When I become an adult, nobody will be counting my meat for me.”

Chicken whenever I wanted.

Two pieces of beef if I felt like it.

Nobody saying, “Leave that one for your brother.”

Ah.

What a beautiful lie.

Because now that I am an adult, I have one question:

Who scammed us?

Because this is not the adult life I was promised.

Nobody told me adulthood would involve so much thinking.

What am I doing with my life?

What am I supposed to be doing?

How much money do I need?

Have I done enough?

Am I behind?

What is for dinner?

Why is everything so expensive?

Why am I tired?

Why do I have to cook again?

Why can’t someone just tell me what to do?

When I was younger, I thought adults had everything figured out.

Now I understand that many of the adults around me were simply doing their best and hoping nobody would notice that they were figuring it out too.

I remember being younger and seeing relatives who were unmarried in their thirties and wondering why they were still unmarried.

Now I am an adult myself, and I think, “Oh.”

I get it.

I understand so much more now.

Adulthood is not simply eating two pieces of meat on your food. It is carrying responsibilities you did not have as a child. It is making decisions without always knowing whether they are the right ones. It is having bills, expectations, dreams, disappointments, unanswered prayers and an increasing awareness that life does not always follow the timeline you imagined.

I frequently hear how childless people will not have anyone to take care of them in old age, and I laugh to myself that although my adult children are wonderful and doing well, I would be surprised if they meaningfully helped me get through old age. I am not expecting it and I have always endeavored to have enough money to pay people to care for me if it comes to that. Just curious about parents who are now old and infirmed— are your children taking care of you (other than ‘let me take over your finances because you are getting too old to take care of your money without me’)? Am I getting too cynical in my old age? What was your experience?

Everything is so much realer in perspective now. It’s like I don’t want be materialistic anymore. I want to buy a guitar be off the grid and be content as less materialistic I can be. I wish there was like a list of positive benefits for long term mushroom use idk it’s hard to explain xD.

Does anyone else feel like the enshittification of everything is making them not want to do anything anymore? I can afford to go out and do things, but why the fuck would I pay $300 for a concert ticket and $40 for two beers just to be treated like cattle by security and deal with a crowd full of people who have zero consideration for anyone else? Everything costs twice as much while the quality of the experience gets worse. Concerts, restaurants, travel, pretty much everything. I’m over feeling like I’m being squeezed for every last dollar just to have a mediocre experience. I’m tired of it all.

I swear, I’ve been going through a constant existential crisis and I can’t seem to find a solution or a way out. we’re living on a lonely little planet, surrounded by nothingness

There was a time when a single person working a regular 9–5 could support a family of four, buy a house, and potentially two cars.

Now you’ve got couples working full-time jobs, pulling overtime, sometimes six days a week, busting their asses, and STILL struggling to afford a mortgage.
Like, what the actual fuck happened to the housing market? 😂

At what point do we stop treating not moving out or not owning a home as some sort of personal failure?
I’m genuinely curious whether the social stigma has changed. Do people still look down on adults who live with their parents, or have we collectively accepted that the economic circumstances are completely different now?

I know myself and other mates pushing 30, still living with parents but not sure if we’ll be judged in the dating scene for this.