It’s hard to be single in your 30s without your buddies getting mad when you cancel dates
A few days before I was due to go to dinner with a friend on a Friday night, I asked if we could reschedule because it was someday that the guy I was texting with on a dating app could meet up. It wasn’t ideal to cancel for her, but if I didn’t, I’d probably end up not meeting him. Seasoned historians know this is how it works: history has to happen quickly or it can fizzle out.
My friend – who is also celibate – wasn’t bothered and insisted that I go on the date and tell her about it afterwards. But when I told another colleague about it, they were shocked and said they would be upset if I did that to them. It surprised me: surely a good friend understands how important it is for me to find love, and therefore it would be a good idea for me to call it quits? I took this question to the wider friendship group.
My best mate admitted that she was once upset with me for canceling her date. She said it was because she knew the man was wasting my time and thus wasting hers too. She added that she would be sad if she called off their relationship now, because she lives out of town so we can’t see each other much.
A couple of other people said it “depends”, but they’d get annoyed if I canceled Friday night dinner a few days in advance (which I did) because they don’t go out much during the week and so were looking forward to going out on Friday night.
Another friend said she would have probably turned down other offers to meet people for the sake of our plan, so I would be upset if I didn’t match her behavior in this way, as it showed I valued our friendship less than she did. Single people, or those who were recently single, said without hesitation that of course they would understand if you canceled them out on a date.
I’ve actually noticed that those who have been in relationships the longest are the least sympathetic to why I called them off on a date. “Whether it’s a date or not is irrelevant,” someone said. The point is, it’s not completely irrelevant.
With many of my friends on the couch breastfeeding their other kids, I’m alone on the couch, scrolling through dating apps and trying not to fall into a pit of despair every time I come across a guy who says, “I’m thinking of my dating goals.” Finding someone who wants a committed relationship in today’s dating culture is elusive. It takes an insurmountable amount of energy to hold on to hope and keep going which is why I need the support of friends who are getting it. If a friend nags me for canceling a date with me, it shows me that they don’t understand how hard dating in their 30s can be.
App dating is also erratic: you can spend an evening on it and end up with three dates for the next week or nothing. It’s hard as a single person to get the right balance of making plans so you’re not only alone all week, but also leaving space in your journal for now.
How scheduling works in your 30s makes this problem worse. In our 20s, our lives felt similar, we lived close to each other and were available to hang out casually at short notice. Friends were hanging out and lounging on your couch. However, now that we’re older, many friendship gatherings feel like events: birthdays, group dinners, long-awaited anniversaries. It takes a lot of effort: people need to check that their husbands can be home with the kids, schedule a babysitter, or book trains to come to London.
Life can feel lonely while most of your other friends are attached. Meeting people seems harder than when I was in my twenties, and because I want kids, I feel like I’m running out of time. I don’t think we should always give up our friends for guys and when I have a partner I won’t do that for my friends. It’s just that the app’s dating scheduling can interfere with the way other people make plans and I need some flexibility from my friendship group.
If a friend gets mad at you for canceling it because you’re looking for love, which is something you’re lucky to have, he’s reminding you that he doesn’t know what loneliness is like and that’s annoying. Finding love is hard, and a true friend should understand that, and be sympathetic to the challenges of being single when you’re looking for a committed relationship. So please, don’t get mad at me if I cancel your appointment.
Tiffany Filippou is a freelance journalist. her Totally Beautiful (And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself) He is out now
