Turning 30 Crisis

My older brother and his annoying friends call this age the “no-fly zone” for dating, meaning the age of 28 to 32. Things change for a woman at around 27 or 28. Before this, she was in perpetual party mode.She could cruise with the 'gals' until the wee hours of the morn', and party like it was 1999. These were her days of occasional one-night-stands and reckless behavior. When she hits the end of her twenties, she starts to understand that she’s approaching the big three-oh – and she hasn’t had any babies.

She sees her sisters building little families, and even if she hasn’t been fully sold that she should become a mother, she thinks she ought to, because time is running out and she doesn’t want to miss the opportunity.

She’s probably heard that misquoted statistic about women who don’t marry by 35 never do, and fear strikes her heart as anxiety creeps in.

She has a lifetime of programs instilled in her that say that a woman in our society gets married, gets a house, and starts making babies when she’s in her thirties. If she doesn’t, there’s something wrong with her.

It’s at this point that she takes on what I call 'the blood-scent'. The reason I call it this is because you can smell it on her a mile away, just by her attitudes and almost manic focus on all things marriage and family related. She subscribes to “Bride” even when she’s not dating. She dotes on her nephews and nieces as if the were her own. She goes home at night and burns ceremonial incense to the pagan gods if they will bring her a man and keep her womb fertile.

Okay, so I took this a little extreme, but you get my point.

How do you spot her?

1. She’s very interested in dating, and comes across as a bit fervent and manic. You see her sizing men up when introduced by a friend. You swear you might have even seen fangs when she smiled at them.
2. She’s the one who asks/begs her female and male friends to hook her up with everyone they know.
3. She’s talks a lot about marriage, babies, houses, and life plans.
4. She doesn’t seem to be living her life, all so that she won’t scare off a potential husband. She doesn’t see that her difficulty in having successful relationships is an indicator that she’s placing far too much importance on her programmed goal of getting married rather than living out her life.
5. She laments that there are no good men out there, looking for only her “knight in shining armor.” She wants a man and a family to complete her.

Is she doing this on purpose? No, not at all. She’s just going after what she wants, the same way everyone else is.

The mistake (my personal opinion - and im no expert!) being made by this woman all the time is that she allows her goal to cloud her vision – and her selection process. Instead of finding a man she can bond with and forge a solid relationship, she wants the one who will father her children and provide.

She also does this by ignoring her own life and becomes what she thinks she needs to be to get a husband.

She will succeed, but down the road, after twenty-odd years of child-rearing, there’s not much left between her and the man to keep the relationship from dissolving. She’s blinding herself to the prerequisite of a good match and selling herself into the Marriage Program .

Our culture fosters this kind of approach to dating, love, marriage, and families. Girls have been sold a bill of goods since they were small and innocent. Women are given specific gender roles, which are reinforced through the media. Girls are programmed that
they must dress in pink, not blue, and play with baby dolls, not cars or trucks.

They are given Walt Disney movies that tell you how to think of men as “Prince Charming” stereotypes, who will someday come and sweep you off your feet. They buy magazines that proclaim to help them build their female esteem by adhering to a code of physical appearance (be skinny as a rail and wear these clothes and shoes), and they compare themselves with other women at every opportunity.

I tell you this not to fill you with despair, but so you’ll know what kind of playing field to expect when your clock starts ticking louder.

We don’t really know what we want when we’re young. That’s not to say you will figure it all out later (or can’t figure it out sooner), but experience will make for better decisions. Also, there are many mistakes you must make, and some mistakes you can’t simply learn from watching others.

The female “program” should only further reinforce the importance of building your plan early on. These are tricky and treacherous waters. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. I want you to see what’s up ahead and make your own decisions – not the ones someone else has made for you.

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