Yes… I'm 35 & Single If you are, you're not alone. About 56% of people in their thirties are married, while the other 44% of thirty-somethings are single.
Whether you're 35 or 75, it's never too late to fall madly (or gently and even sacredly) in love. Just ask actress Ellen Burstyn and a host of other women who found themselves in the heat of romance when they least expected it. My mother met the love of her life when she was 84.
Among those 18 to 29 years of age, 63% of men versus 34% of women considered themselves single. This dropped to 25% of men and 17% of women for those 30 to 49 years of age.
Being single while in your 30s is the best way to create that healthy supply of self-sufficiency. So, when the time comes and you meet that special someone (assuming that's what you want), you'll be much less likely to form an unhealthy co-dependent bond than you would at 25.
Some age groups have a higher share of singles than others. Adults under 30 are the most likely age group to be single, with roughly half (47%) falling into this category. In contrast, 30- to 49-year-olds are the least likely to be single (21%).
If you are, you're not alone. About 56% of people in their thirties are married, while the other 44% of thirty-somethings are single. Marriage timing has changed since a few generations ago, where it was more common to marry young, today's population is filled with individuals who may have different goals.
As of 2022, Pew Research Center found, 30 percent of U.S. adults are neither married, living with a partner nor engaged in a committed relationship. Nearly half of all young adults are single: 34 percent of women, and a whopping 63 percent of men.
Is dating in your 30s harder? Some aspects of dating in your 30s make the process harder—such as a shrinking candidate pool. You can no longer meet potential partners at school and probably aren't attending parties and social gatherings as often.
Dating is hard at any age, but entering a new decade introduces a whole new set of nuances. If you thought you finally nailed the dating game in your 20s, it might feel frustrating and overwhelming once you hit 30. The truth is dating in your 30s is very different from dating in your 20s.
The reason people are taking their time to find the right partner, focusing on their careers first, living together before tying the knot, and because the divorce rate is pretty high in America. So if you are in your 30s (or even older) and still single, do not worry — and never feel pressured.
Still, 21% of never-married singles age 40 and older say they have never been in a relationship. Roughly four-in-ten (42%) of those younger than 40 say the same. Never-married single men and women are about equally likely to have never been in a relationship (35% and 37%, respectively).
Some of the top places that engaged couples met were at school, work, via online dating, and through friends. Others met their partner partying the night away at a bar, through family, at church, at the gym, and at restaurants.
According to his research, if your man graduated from high school, he'll think marriage is a possibility aged 23 to 24. Ninety percent of men who graduate from higher education are ready for marriage around 26 to 33: these are the years when most college graduates propose.
“Let's be honest, dating in your late thirties and forties can seem daunting,” says Schilling. “Many of my more mature clients tell me they battle with a lack of confidence due to their age. They may go on lots of dates but finding someone truly compatible still presents a challenge.”
In the U.S. in 2019, among adults between the ages of 25 and 29, fewer than 1 in 3 were married. That jumps to just over half for adults between 30 and 34, then to just over 60% for people between 35 and 39. The marriage rate peaks at nearly two-thirds after that.
But I've now come to realize that even though all of the press around Tinder focuses on its popularity with twentysomethings, it's actually the perfect app for someone in their thirties, or older, to find love. As people age, they naturally grow less inclined to seek out relationships that are more casual.
"The breakups are harder in your 30s," says therapist Heather deCastro, who works with millennials at her New York practice, Millennium Psychotherapy. Factors include a generation of millennials who wait longer to seriously date, meaning years-long relationships now end in the third decade.
In that time, I've noticed something: the prime number years of relationships are often the hardest (i.e. 1, 3. 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29…) Often, it seems these years correspond with significant transitions and pressure points in marriage.
Heterosexual couples with large age gaps had a faster decline in relationship satisfaction in their first 6 to 10 years of marriage than similarly aged couples. Couples with an age gap of 1 to 3 years (with the man older than the woman) were the most common and had the greatest levels of satisfaction.
Think of 10 years as a general guideline, but be open to other ages as well—and don't limit yourself to dating only someone older. "'Cast a wide net' is what I tell all my clients,” Sussman says. “Men should date older, and women should be OK experimenting with dating younger. And we should all be more open-minded.”
The third decade of life brings a degree of self-awareness and understanding that is difficult to capture in previous years. Armed with a deeper knowledge of who you are and what you like, you start interrogating the choices you never even thought to question before.
Naturally, the truth is rather different. Studies have blitzed the stereotype of the poor lonely spinster out of the water, revealing that women are actually happier being single than men. Further research has shown that single women without children were happier than both men and married women with children.
The fact that you've never had a boyfriend or girlfriend could reflect many things. Many people throughout their twenties focus on school, military service, travel, or career building. It's not unusual for young adults to pursue personal goals instead of relationship goals.
It seems as though attractive men and women tend to be single more frequently or for longer periods of time than “average” looking people. Sure it may be easier for them to get a variety of dates, but getting out of the chronically single stage seems to elude them.