How do I stop being ashamed of being 30+ and single?

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Once again on my birthday the other day, my dad brought up the dating situation again and explaining that by now I really do I need to meet someone and and there I am going "Yeah I know". Even though age is just a number, I still look at the numbers and think that you must be doing this by now, you must be doing that by now.

It makes me feel bad because I spent a lot the 20s being single and now into the 30s and still get plagued by thoughts that I "should" be married and had kids by now since maybe my late 20s. I mean I look at my parents and grandparents who married and had kids in their 20s and I've lived through that time single and thinking I "should" have done that by now even though another part of me is still not ready for marriage when it feels as though I should be ready by now.I just hate it sometimes when our lives are dictated what we should and shouldn't be doing based on age.

The antidote to shame is vulnerability.

I can empathize with how you feel Chris and am sorry for the shame you are experiencing. My Grandfather who passed away used to ask my dad during my 20's "Did he find a woman yet?" and every time I went over my Grandfather's house I knew he would ask about it. I would just smile and sort of chuckle and say "not yet". Parents I think worry about their kids and I think that plays a part in it. I've had that shame too sometimes but I try to tell myself that life is not "linear" or the same for everyone.

We each go at our own pace and develop in our own time. I don't have statistics to prove it but I suspect there are a lot of us (men and women) in our 30's+ that are single out there. Those of us that are can at least know that we are not alone.

One good way to deal with it is not to think about it.

I think you were supposed to learn teenage rebellion and how not to give a crap what your parents think you should be.

Do you want a girlfriend, or are you happy with being single? When I was younger, late teens and into my 20s, I was very eager to be in a relationship, but those that I wan into weren't really into me. I did have a girlfriend in the mid-90s. We met in the summer after my freshman year of college and stayed together through Christmas and then broke up in February. After a while I grew out of it and am satisfied with being single.

I personally stopped being ashamed of it when I realised that ultimately everything we are is derivative of the nature seed being planted in the nurture soil to sprout out how things eventuate. Sometimes the seed isn't planted in the right place to flourish.

I was once in this position but I got out of it by getting into a real romantic relationship!! !

Sometimes it's not that the seed is planted in the wrong place but in my case I think it just took a little while for the seed to grow

We do NOT have to play victim to our circumstances anymore!

Whenever I get asked the questions in regards to dating and meeting people by people like my dad, I feel it just imposes pressure on me even more and just makes self imposed pressure worse as well. I don't know if dad says that because throughout his late teens, 20s, 30s and 40s he was in a relationship with my mum and now married to my step mum and doesn't know life being single.

Your dad is probably concerned about you and wants the best for you and doesn't realize that he is making you feel worse.

To answer your original question, to stop feeling ashamed you need to work on your own thoughts and attitudes and try to accept yourself as you are because you are just fine as you are. A relationship will happen for you when it happens. Try not to make the situation worse by feeling badly about it.

at least your dad is interested in your life. Mine lost interest in mine when I turned 18.

Been there, done that, and I know how much it sucks. Trying to look at the benefits of being single are not salient to people in this state at all because if you haven't had a relationship, you don't realize what you give up when in a relationship. It is easy to view being in a relationship as having the same life as you currently do, just with another person in it.

Trying not to think about something is really difficult, especially when you are reminded about it constantly. Turn of the TV, you see couples together, listen to almost any music (except maybe classical) and it talks about love. Go out in public, you see couples together.

As an earlier post said, about the only solution for it is to get into a relationship. But that is tough for some of us, and there aren't any easy solutions as to how to make that happen.

Granted, I struggle with getting to that point myself, but I've been trying to reach a point where I am happy with being single myself. I haven't dated anyone since I was 26 (I'm 40 now), and even then, she asked me out right after she broke up with her ex, and then dumped me when a guy she wanted showed up. As long as I am home, I'm fine, but I see it every day at work. Couples, women looking at certain men with a glow in their eyes. Knowing that no woman has ever looked at me that way rips my heart out.

God, I know it's awful, but that is the unfortunate reality we find ourselves in. I wish I had a magic cure for it, I'd share it with everyone. Just stay strong and don't give up, keeping fighting the shame, that's all I can really say.