Why Being 25 And Single Is The Absolute, Goddamn Worst

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Being 25 fucking sucks. Sometimes it’s great, but mostly it sucks. If like me, you were a precocious eleven year, you dreamt your twenties would be just like Sex and the City; sitting around coffee shops with your three best girlfriends discussing ‘up the butt’ and your Mr Big.

Fast forward 14 years trying to get your three best girlfriends in the one cafe is much like being a cat wrangler; futile. Plus, if anyone is doing ‘up the butt’, you can bet your bottom $1 lube they’re not telling you.

It’s not like I think I’m Carrie Bradshaw or anything, but as I sit here pondering the banality of my life, I couldn’t help but wonder, does this shit get better?

If life were like a Sex and the City episode, Carrie’s monologue would draw to a close, prolific question would hang loosely in the air. Jump forward one scene and Miranda tries to get more comfortable with literal shit, Charlotte’s husband is a figurative piece of shit, and Samantha’s in a shitty same-sex relationship. By the magical (not real) nature of life (nature of scripted TV), all the answers would unfold via the three central characters’ trials and tribulations. But life is not Sex and the City and being 25 fucking sucks.

And like any other mildly expressive Gen-Y I am going to list the reasons why.

At work you’re someone’s bitch and you can’t foresee that changing in the near future.

You went to university, got a degree and even got a job in your field. But to quote Kanye on the joys of life after tertiary education, “If u kiss enough ass, you’ll move up to the next level, Which is being a secretary’s secretary!”

It’s not like a half decent job doesn’t exist, it just doesn’t at the company you’re at. So you leave that understaffed, outdated- business model and land yourself a new gig. Seems great right?

But it’s not. In some ways, it’s worse. Expectations are high. So high, you wonder if meeting them is even within reach. The workload creeps up on you, the way kilos do on your arms. The personalities you deal with are called Arrogant, Controlling and Critical. Didn’t you read a stat somewhere that said 1 in every 25 bosses is a psychopath? Yeah, that sounds right.

The worst part though, is that you start to question yourself and your abilities. Your friends start to get promotions and claim mid-weight bitch titles. But even they feel overwhelmed and under satisfied. Being someone’s bitch at 25 fucking sucks.

Your love life consists of drunken party hook-ups, and Tinder and Facebook messages from dudes you knew before 2013.

Okay so the drunken party pashes are fun. Okay, okay! They’re not just necessary crushes or flings either. But it’s never with the right person.

Even if they are the right person it’s not going anywhere. Not after being so inebriated together you forget they’re a person- not a penis. A person with family, aspirations, a history and a penis. What is it about sleeping together that makes you both unable to picture sitting across from one-another, sober, at dinner?

Tinder isn’t any better. I don’t care what anyone says, meeting a perfect stranger face to face is equally if not more scary than jumping out of a plane. Honestly, Oscars for all the honeys out there meeting up with fellas like it ain’t no thang. It’s a thang. You and your ego are shitting themselves like a prozzi after her first bump. There you both sit, pretending like you’re perfectly comfortable on a civilised date, find (read: feign) three things in common while you polish a bottle of wine so you can feel human.

Then it’s time to bone. It’s bad. Bad, bad, bad. Or maybe it’s not awful, but it’s awkward. Please tell me I’m not the only one to have fallen in love, only to find out having sex with them is comparable to a dugong trying to do the salsa?

Then there are the dudes that use private message the same way men in the 80’s used their little black book: hitting up the ladies they didn’t have the courage to approach three years prior, when you two getting together would have actually made sense. Mainly because back then, you lived in the same state. Now 3 states away Barry wants to know, ‘how u been?’ and ‘what’re u doing?’. Perfect. That’s what I need: no sex and no company from 2013 Baz on the other side of the country. I’ll take the Dugong/Bad sex thanks.

Bills, Bills, Bills.

Listen, I’m lucky. I don’t have that many bills. t’s just: rent, my phone bill, plus the electricity and gas when they come in quarterly. My university degree re-payments come out of my wage (thank you Hawke Labour Government circa 1989) and I don’t have a credit card. It’s not that I have many bills, it’s that I don’t have any assets. I don’t own a car, my unit is rented and I have $100 minus $30 to my name until next week when I get paid. I’m basically one accident or staff cut (fuck up at work) away from retirement…to my mum’s spare room. It’s just a hop, skip and a drunk tumble away from financial bankruptcy. Did someone say, anxiety?

Staying reasonably slim is near impossible.

In the words of Selena Gomez, ‘I just want to look good for you’ but that shit is hard boy. You want me to eat boiled eggs and spinach for breakfast, no milk in my coffee and then pass on literally the only thing at work worth getting excited about: Diane’s farewell white chocolate mud cake? Refer to Bieber’s smash: ‘Sorry’.

It’s not that you don’t work out either. You hit the gym three or four times a week but it’s no where near enough to counter the after dinner highway robbery of your willpower and the 7 biscuit ransom being held against you.

You’re too old now to avoid adulthood.

If you’re 25 and still living at home, you’re either from a migrant family, a mummy’s boy, or a loser. Maybe you’re all three!

Okay, okay, that’s totally harsh. But don’t blame me! Take that finger and point it firmly toward western culture. Not even Shoshanna Girls lived at home still, and she was the pansy of the group!

Having your own place was going to be just like Friends: You and your best girlfriend were going to live in a huge loft apartment with a lounge room the size of Kim K’s ass and your two male neighbours would come over every day, one with their head in a turkey. Instead you’re in a rundown terrace, illegally subletting off the original lease holder, sitting in your room furnished to your ‘individual’ taste care of little known Swedish brand IKEA, watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills eating a block of chocolate. That block being only ‘family’ thing about the place.

If I had to summarize it in a sentence, being 25 sucks because I’m not where I want to be. I’m single, 10 kgs overweight, an available balance of $100 (I spent $30 while I wrote this) and dreading Monday. But, on some level I’m okay with it. I left the house this morning, I’m writing at the local cafe with my housemate and there’s still one and half days till Monday. For now, that’s all I need.

If you has asked me my ideal way to spend a Saturday 6 months ago, I would have said this. Sometimes you might not be where you want to be, but if you take a moment, remove the shades and put down the latte you might notice that in this moment. In this very moment, you’re okay and things don’t suck so much.