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A 30-year-old woman got dumped. Hundreds cheered her up with their later-in-life love stories.

You can still find the love of your life at 30, 40, and beyond.

via X
Couples who met after 30.

A lot of emotions rise to the surface after being dumped. It can leave a person feeling sad, lonely, confused, rejected and left with a sense that you’ll never find anyone again. People tend to think, “If that person couldn’t stick it out with me, then who will?” However, most of the time, it’s irrational worry. There are more than a few billion people on the planet to choose from, you just gotta put yourself out there. But that’s a hard thing to hear when your feelings are still raw.

A study reported by The New York Times found that today, the old “plenty of fish in the sea” cliche is growing truer by the day. We are nearing a point where there will be more unmarried adults in the U.S. than those who have tied the knot. The most recent Census data shows the share of American adults who were neither married nor living with a significant other had risen to 46.4%. That lines up with the demographics of dating app users; about 63% of the millions and millions of users are over 30.

So good news for you single folks, the dating pool just keeps getting deeper. Still, that doesn't mean it feels that way when you're in the thick of it.

kelsey huse, marriage after 30, real stories, love stories, marriage, love, relationships, dating, dating apps, relationshipsFirst dates are intimidating, especially as we get older. Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

In 2020, Kelsey Huse, a software engineer from Austin, Texas, broke up with her boyfriend and at the age of 30, felt like she was never going to meet anyone again.

It's an understandable feeling. Our culturally accepted notion of love is that you're going to meet the love of your life in college or your early 20s. After that, you'll be lucky to settle for companionship. Huse wanted to know if there was any hope in her future.

“My bf broke up with me this week and I just wanna hear happy stories of ppl who found their partner in their 30s thanks,” she wrote on X.

Huse received an avalanche of responses from people who shared pictures and stories about how they met their special people in their 30s and later, giving her plenty of hope for the future. Her tweet went mega-viral earning nearly 7,000 retweets and 150,000 likes.

Here are some of the best responses.

"I strongly believe getting married in your 20s should be illegal. Sort of kidding, but I met my husband at 32 at a funeral. We make each other laugh just by being ourselves. He is the kindest person I know. We celebrated our 13 year wedding anniversary this year," one user wrote.

"I met my wife in my 30’s and we got married in our 40’s. Love her," added another.


Stories poured in by the dozens to prove that, yes, it really is possible to not only date close to and after 30, but to find love, and even to find the love of your life.

That's not to say that dating after 30 doesn't have its challenges and differences. Experts recommend re-evaluating your approach as you get older. In your 30s it's probably time to ditch the games and be more direct about what you want. Don't waste time with people who don't want the same things in life and love as you, but you'll also have to learn to give people some grace and patience — everyone has scars and warts at this age, including you.

Huse couldn't believe the incredible responses she received and better yet, that they really did lift her spirits.


kelsey huse, marriage after 30, real stories, love stories, marriage, love, relationships, dating, dating apps, relationshipsYes, even us elder-millennials can meet someone new and fall in love at any point in life. Photo by Sean Stratton on Unsplash

Huse may not have known it at the time, but breaking up at 30 may have been a blessing in disguise. Studies show that people who get married later in life have better mental health than those who get hitched at a younger age.

According to family ecology researcher Matt Johnson, those who married at the same age as or later than their peers reported higher levels of happiness and self-esteem—and less depression—than those who married early.

"People who marry early tend not to get as much education, have kids earlier than is optimal, and as a result get locked into careers they hadn't aspired to. In mid-life they're a little more depressed—or have a lower sense of self-worth—not because they violated some societal norm, but because they started down the path to family life early,” Johnson said.

Huse's story shows that there is no time frame for love and that it’s possible to find the perfect person well after the age of 30. It also shows that even though Twitter/X gets a deserved bad rap for being a pretty hostile environment, every once in a while people come together to do something beautiful.

This article originally appeared three years ago. It has been updated.

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Man's side-splitting monologue on why 'women don't want to date anymore' is eerily accurate

The women in the comments are convinced one of them snitched.

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A viral TikTok argues that women don't want to give up the joy of their own personal peace and freedom for anyone.

There's been a lot of discourse on the state of modern dating and a lot of theories on why it seems harder than ever for people to find connection with romantic partners. Could it be that the achievement and education gaps between men and women are altering the dynamics? Have social media and dating apps broken our brains and hearts? Do we all have unrealistic expectations and unlimited options, leading to never feeling satisfied with anything or anyone?

Those are all intriguing options, but an alternate theory has recently arisen that's quickly gaining steam: Maybe being single isn't as lonely as we think. Maybe being single is actually freaking awesome.

A guy on TikTok who goes by Get To the Point Bro shared a hilarious monologue on why women who have been single for a long time "don't want to date anymore." Women say he absolutely nailed it.

the office, andy bernard, dating, relationships, dating advice, single, romance, loveThe Frenchman's monologue was absolutely spot onGiphy

At first, it might seem like he's poking fun, either at single women or at the men who can't seem to win them over. But not so! What he's done is perfectly captured the joy many people find in being single and, frankly, able to do whatever the hell they want.

"Some women have been single for so long they don't date anymore, they grant you access to their peaceful little empire like a reluctant queen handing you a visitor's badge," he says. "You text her good morning and she's already annoyed, like 'Why are you disturbing the sacred silence of my personal growth journey?'"

He goes on, "Bro she's been sleeping diagonally in her bed for three years, she's not giving up that territory because you opened the door and paid for coffee."

"You plan a cute date, she's thinking 'That sounds nice but also I could stay home, deep clean my apartment, do a 12 steps skincare routine, order sushi and not have to listen to a man breathe.'"

"You try to check in emotionally, 'How are you feeling?' She's feeling fantastic because you're not here."

"You're not competing with other guys. There are no other guys. You're competing with her weighted blanket, her peace, her cat named Chairman Meow, and the simple joy of not having to share her fries."

These are just a few of the best lines from the nearly 2-minute rant, all delivered in the most amazing French accent you can imagine. Please, enjoy:


@gettothepointbro

DATING A GIRL WHO IS USED TO BE ALONE CAN BE VERY HARD .

The best thing about the video is the discussion in the comments. Women want to know how this man got access to this top-secret information. The rant is so eerily, frighteningly accurate that women are convinced this French guy is living in their heads. That, or someone's secretly leaking intel.

"dammit. somebody call a meeting of the council. he knows too much."

"I dont often offer this compliment to the male species but you explained it better than I ever could."

"Alright, who’s told him this info??? So exposed right now"

"The joy of sleeping diagonally across my bed cannot be fully explained."

"This is the most accurate profiling I’ve ever heard. You absolutely ailed it."

Clearly, we've tapped into a real phenomenon here.

@gettothepointbro

CAN YOU RELATE LADIES ? THAT’S WHY WE LOVE YOU ❤️

The truth is that many people—both men and women—are disillusioned with the sad state of the dating scene these days. App burnout is a real thing, and meeting new people in real life is a ton of work. So, it's no surprise that more and more people are just choosing to stay single and enjoy all the perks that come along with it. This is a stark change, especially for women.

According to FiveThirtyEight, "Women were also more likely than men to say that they weren’t dating because they have other priorities right now." Priorities like travel, career, friendship, and even just self-care—all things that wind up taking a backseat when people get involved in relationships. It wasn't too long ago that women of a certain age that were still single were called "spinsters," but that word has lost a significant amount of power. This new generation of women aren't embarrassed or ashamed to be single; they're loving it for exactly all the reasons this video describes.

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Woman who was chastised for being excited about first date shares inspiring update

"Every day this man reminds me that I made the right decision putting on my dress to impress him."

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Woman chastised for excitement about date has inspiring update.

Everyone has their own dating preferences, which is a good thing because everybody looking for the same type of person would get pretty boring (and competitive). But with all the dating gurus and armchair experts on the subject, it can feel like there's no winning at this dating game. One dating influencer says women should never make the first move but another says that women who make the first move are the gold standard.

Chances are if one person has an opinion on something there's another so-called expert with the exact opposite opinion. One woman found herself staring down a slew of negative comments after she innocently shared a video about preparing for her first date with a man. Yaya, who runs the social media account, Past Perfect with Yaya recently updated her followers about that unexpectedly controversial date.

In order to understand why the update was so significant, we first have to revisit why the first date garnered such negative reactions. Yaya shares a brief recap in her update saying, "I made a video saying I met a man on a dating app and he told me he made me reservations at an Italian restaurant and I said I don't eat Italian food, or I don't prefer it rather, but please keep the reservations because nobody has made reservations like that for me in a while. Just made the plans."

couple, dating, relationships, couples, first date, datesCouple lounging on the hood of a car. Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

This is the bit that seemed to send the Internet armchair experts into a tizzy. She explains that so many people made fun of her and told her that she was the reason the bar was so low for men among other unkind comments. The entire situation Yaya described appears to be people who found time to be unnecessarily rude to someone who was simply excited to go out on a date with a man who thought enough to make reservations at a nice restaurant.

The woman who was surely confused by people's reactions could've listened to the naysayers. Yaya could've cancelled the date or decided not to go back out with the man when the date was over due to other people's opinions on what constituted a proper date. Instead, she went with her gut and got all gussied up to meet the guy who was considerate enough to make reservations for her even before he knew her favorite food.

dates, dating, nice restaurant, first date, relationships, Woman wearing black sweater holding hand with man wearing gray suit jacket. Photo by René Ranisch on Unsplash

"Well, I'm still with that man," she reveals. "Here we are three years later. We have traveled to many countries, many cities, many roadtrips. We've lived in different houses and done different things."

Had she listened to the people putting her down for the excitement she was feeling at the time, she would've missed out on what appears to be a great relationship.

"Everyday this man reminds me that I made the right decision by putting on my dress to impress him. And that had I listened to them I would not be living in Santa Barbara, California right now with the man I'm about to go to Turkey with, that just went to the store and bought me lipstick," Yaya says.

She explains that she's obsessed with a particular lipstick and noticed stores were no longer stocking them, so when her partner went to the drug store to pick up some sleeping medicine, he saw they had the lipstick she likes and grabbed it for her. That's it. It was a simple gesture of consideration, the same consideration he showed by making the reservation for their first date.

Yaya ends the video by saying, "Don't let these people convince you that your love should be according to their definition. You love and be loved according to your soul and your spirit and your heart. We are still together almost three years later all because I got excited that he made reservations for dinner and he has made me excited about life ever since."

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Researchers have been secretly studying who gets "the ick" and what it might say about you

"The ick" has been around for ages but never measured and analyzed. Until now.

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The ick: A sudden revulsion to a romantic partner over trivial behavior.

The first time I heard of "the ick" came from watching the hit Netflix show Nobody Wants This. In the show, Kristen Bell's character suddenly develops the ick for Adam Brody's character (whom she's dating) after a series of relatively minor faux pas as he's trying to impress her parents. He wears a cheesy sports coat and makes one-too-many corny jokes, to be precise. She suddenly finds herself repulsed by him, and insists that no one has "ever come back from the ick."

Adam Brody's character eventually wins her back over with an impressive display of emotional maturity, but it was a fascinating sequence nonetheless. It brought the term to the attention of a lot of viewers and catapulted it even higher into the zeitgeist.

A new study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences aims to shed light on this phenomenon, and the people who experience it.


dating, relationships, break ups, divorce, the ick, dating studyThe Ick even made it to JeopardyGiphy

For starters, let's define "the ick," or rather, let the authors of the study do it:

"The 'ick' 'is a sudden and visceral aversion to a romantic partner, often triggered by behaviors or characteristics that superficially signal incompatibility or low mate quality."

In other words, it's when a person says or does something that really skeeves you out or turns you off. It sounds a little silly, but the ick can be extremely powerful and tough for people to shake. That's because, as the authors note, whatever the behavior is that icked you out might signal that you're not a good match for this person, or that they're just a low quality partner in general. So in a sense, it's an evolutionary protection mechanism.

It seems extremely harsh that our bodies would be trained to reject partners at the slightest misstep, but in evolutionary terms, it makes a lot of sense:

"A false-positive error—accepting an incompatible partner—can drain resources, reduce reproductive success, and carry long-term relational consequences, whereas a false-negative error—rejecting a compatible partner—results in a missed opportunity but poses fewer immediate risks," the study says.

So if the guy you were into shows up in a fedora one day, it's probably best to show him the door posthaste. Better safe than sorry.

What causes the ick?


- YouTubewww.youtube.com

It's usually brought on by things that, on the surface, seem pretty unimportant. We're not talking about cheating, emotional abuse, or being a bad person. It's much subtler than that. The researchers use lots of examples from TV to make their point:

"In Seinfeld ... Jerry is disgusted by his date's 'manly' hands; and in Sex and the City ... Carrie is revolted by a lover after learning he wrote her a love song."

But where the actual studying part of the study comes in is that the authors began inhaling TikTok videos where users discussed their experiences getting the ick, and they began rigorously categorizing the responses.

The real-life examples are even more nit-picky, like someone who licks their fingers before turning a page. Girls "tripping in public." A guy wearing jorts, or bending over too far and accidentally showing his butt crack. Or, in Adam Brody's case, wearing a sports coat. In many cases these simple (and hilarious!) things are death knells for a relationship once the ick sets in.

The researchers broke ick-inducing behaviors down into a few buckets: Gender incongruence, public embarrassment, or physical appearance. Believe it or not, physical appearance was not the most common! Gender incongruence — guys doing girly things, girls doing manly things — was the biggest category of ick-driving behavior. One girl said the guy she was dating gave her "the ick" when he laid his head on her shoulder affectionately.

Wow...

What getting "the ick" might say about you

disgust, inside out, the ick, dating, relationships, break ups, studies, scientific researchPrime candidate for The IckGiphy

The next part of the study involved recruiting participants who were willing to answer questions about their own experiences with this phenomenon. After thorough interviews, researchers narrowed down three traits that seem to indicate people are more likely to get "the ick,":

Narcissism. People who like to be the center of attention or otherwise display narcissistic tendencies were highly correlated in this study.

Perfectionism. Not perfectionism of the self, mind you! But people who scored highly on questions related to holding the people around them to exceptionally high standards were more prone to "the ick."

Disgust sensitivity. People were more likely to have experienced "the ick" if they answered strongly on questions relating to feeling disgust even outside of a dating or interpersonal sense. People who get exceptionally grossed out by disgusting things are more likely to experience revulsion at minor behaviors in a romantic partner.

Any of those things sound like you? If you're feeling judged, don't. Remember, getting icked-out by a partner isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could be an evolutionary response trying to protect you from making a bad choice (like having a baby with a weirdo). Though it's also important to remember this biological strategy also discards a lot of potentially great partners, so listen to your ick wisely — you might just want to give fedora guy another chance, after all.

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