17 Reasons Why 27 Is The Weirdest Age

There’s a reasonably good chance you will meet your untimely death during this year.

Updated 8 months ago, May 9, 2024

Saying “mid-to-late-twenties” is awkward and makes you realize our inclination to categorize and generalize our identities has gotten too extreme and specific.

And if you don’t die, you’ll wonder if it’s a sign you aren’t talented or accomplished enough.

27 is the first year you start getting offended if people don’t card you for booze. First, you were underage and afraid to get carded. Then you turned 21 and it was thrilling. At 24, people stopped asking for your ID as often and that was novel and made you feel mature. By 27, fuck that. You better ask to see my ID or I’m going to assume I look ancient.

You realize that if you got pregnant/got someone pregnant at this age, not only would your parents not be super pissed at you, they might even be happy.

People start asking you if every person you date is “The One”. Like, I don’t even know their middle name yet. Pump the breaks. This, as opposed to being in your early 20s when claiming someone is The One will earn you doubtful eye rolls.

You start seriously thinking about whether or not you want to find The One, and what kind of person that might be.

You look back on past failed relationships and methodically take stock of what went wrong, what was your fault, what was a product of you being attracted to people who are inherently wrong for you, and what makes you attracted to those people. You know you still have many years of wonderful single life ahead of you, but you’re tired of wasting your energy on relationships that ultimately are going nowhere and are more trouble than they’re worth even as flings.

The same is true for your career. Really, in all parts of your life, 27 = the start of late 20s = basically almost 30 = no longer any definition of “kid”. It’s probably time to start figuring out which parts of your life are imperfect as a result of normal trial and error, and which might be you somehow sabotaging yourself.

You stop pretending you aren’t sabotaging yourself. You recognize that you absolutely sometimes kill good things – jobs, relationships, house plants – when you know better. You cease denial of these destructive habits.

27 is old enough to feel a real sense of ownership over your adulthood. You’re not 21. This whole “being a grown up thing” isn’t brand new anymore. You’ve been in the game for a while, you have a few years under your belt, and you kinda know some shit. Not a lot, but some.

But 27 is also still young enough that if you feel like an aimless mess who is totally not satisfied with where your life is at, you can still justifiably blame being “young and still figuring shit out”.

You’ve possibly been out of college for longer than you were in it, and you still catch yourself saying, “Well, I just graduated so…” as an excuse for still having no idea what you’re doing with your life.

You realize if you are serious about your vague intentions to go to grad school “one day”, that day better happen ASAP before you risk being the oldest person in your program.

30 is only 3 years away, much closer than 20, which really does feel like it just happened. 30 is coming, and while 30 is by no means “old”, it makes you think about how quickly your 20s flew by, and if every decade passes as rapidly, before you know it, you will be old. 27 is when you realize that time moves incredibly fast and eventually you are going to die. But you’re still so young that people think you’re insane for talking about “getting old”. It’s like, “No, assholes, I don’t think I am old, or am even close to old, but I’m suddenly aware that it will happen, and it will arrive faster than I thought. Let me have these feelings.”