15 Unexpectedly Awesome Consequences Of Not Getting Married In Your 20s

1. You have several disaster online dating stories at the ready for entertainment purposes. If it weren’t for all your past dating foils, you’d have a lot less to discuss at cocktail parties. At this point you’re pretty much everyone’s favorite guest.

2. You know exactly what you want out of your hypothetical husband. Part of you wonders why even the craziest people you know seem to have found someone while you’re still searching. But on the upside of being disappointed so many times in the dating world, you have a strong sense as to what you want out of a life partner.

3. You know exactly what you want out of your hypothetical wedding, too. It’s been expensive attending everyone else’s bridal showers, destination bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners, and wedding ceremonies. You have little to no savings as a result, but you do have a keen sense as to what you do and don’t want when you eventually tie the knot. You swear that if you ever get married, it won’t be on a holiday weekend, you’ll let everyone bring a plus one, and you’ll have a very open bar for people who don’t have dates and need to take the edge off.

4. Your vast wedding knowledge also constitutes a solid plan B career option. You’ve been to so many nuptial festivities as a spectator that you feel confident you could open your own boutique wedding planning consulting business. Not that you want to, but it’s nice to have a back-up plan.

5. You realize how smart you are for putting off parenthood. You’re happy for your new mom and dad friends, of course, but getting together with them and hearing them go on and on about what their daily life is like is the best birth control a woman could ask for.

6. You know where to go for happy hour. You have no reason not to go out nightly, so you do. You like being a regular at various local bars. There’s something wonderful about being on a first name basis with bartenders at several neighborhood dives and earning serious street cred on Trivia Night.

7. You’re incredibly adaptable. Since you’ve been relatively unencumbered for so long, you’ve moved around quite a bit. You’ve lived with friends, you’ve lived with a serious boyfriend (or five), and you’ve lived solo. When given the opportunity to relocate for work, you’ve seized it. You’re a certified master at settling into new environments and situations.

8. You exercise more regularly than ever. You do this because you’re worried that your metabolism is slowing down, but the source of your motivation seems irrelevant as long as you get to the gym, right? You’re determined to look as toned, in shape, and youthful as you were in your 20s, so you happily put the effort in. You take spin classes and yoga and you enter triathlons because you want to look amazing naked so you can inspect yourself in front of the mirror while flexing and nodding at yourself in approval.

9. You’re incentivized to find a career and/or job that you actually like. If you’re fed up with where you are professionally, you have the freedom and flexibility to find something else, somewhere else. There’s nobody holding you back or whose career you have to consider when making your own professional decisions.

10. You form strong, solid connections with friends. Being single has given you the drive to make time for the people who matter and to eliminate any sources of stress that weigh you down. You’re like-minded single friends feel more like family and you speak to them multiple times a day.

11. You become more independent and self-sufficient. You know how to budget. How to support yourself. How to treat yourself once in a while. You can cook your own meals (or pour yourself a bowl of cereal when time isn’t on your side). You are perfectly content to spend a Saturday afternoon on your own—picking up coffee, strolling around your neighborhood, or going for a jog in the park.

12. You become more open minded. By not following the more conventional path, you’ve realized just how many options and possibilities there are and you won’t be bullied by friends, family, or society into thinking that any one path is definitely right. You’ll figure you’re own life out, thank you.

13. You know how to make tough decisions. Since you’ve been the only one designing your life for some time, you’re completely comfortable making your own choices, big and small. You don’t hesitate when deciding between brands of organic spinach at the supermarket, or neighborhoods to live in. You know what you like and you don’t waste time overthinking stuff.

14. You’re well traveled. You love planning adventurous trips several months in advance because you can. You’ve likely been to more than two continents because you’ve had so much freedom to explore and you’ve collected a ton of enriching experiences along the way.

15. You know yourself. The biggest advantage of spending so much time with yourself is that you know exactly what makes you happy. You know the types of people you want to surround yourself with, when to cut ties, and how to empower yourself. This independence is a direct side effect of remaining single during the critical self-exploratory decade of your 20s.

Stacey was dumped right before her wedding. Find out why it was the best thing that ever happened to her here.