Why You Should Celebrate Turning 30

By Daisy Buchanan
Viva
Rachel Green coming to terms with turning 30 in an episode of Friends. Picture / Supplied.

They drive hatchbacks, go all dewy-eyed over Dirty Dancing and would sooner nurse a quiet half in their local pub than spend the evening glued to the sticky dance floor of a city centre nightclub. Not what you might expect from the average thirtysomething - but exactly what the young fogeys are up to, according to a new survey by Nationwide.

As someone who turned 30 earlier this year, it is news I can relate to. For although my first decade as an adult was fun, fast and frenetic, I was so broke I stopped checking my bank statements. I knew the gist would be, “There is nothing for you here.”

The idea of entering my thirties in a nice flat, a stable relationship and a savings account seemed less likely than starting the decade on the moon. But life is more stable now, and it’s far from boring - in fact, it’s blissful.

You know you’re ready for your thirties when you don’t want to celebrate by staying out all night drinking neon cocktails but feel like toasting yourself with a small glass of chilled Chablis and an early night. Here’s a (by no means exhaustive) list of the other secret truths about what it is to be thirtysomething today.

You embrace your inner nerd
You nurture an obsession with quiz shows and worry if you can't get more than one thing right on University Challenge. You'll stay in on a Friday night to watch TV and can hardly believe you ever preferred to see in the weekend at a rave in an old multi- storey car park.

You're bad with money in a brand new way
You're over payday trips to Primark, and those Saturday night moments when you yell, "The Jagerbombs are on me!" You pride yourself on your fiscal responsibility, yet sometimes a wheedling inner voice tells you, "Sixty dollars is a completely reasonable amount to spend on a candle."

You want to learn more about the world...
...and have a bookmarked tab full of worthy, 5,000 word articles from The Economist and The New Yorker, which you attack on your commute. Never again will you be at a loss when someone says, "Whither Darfur?"

...but you're still a child of the internet with the attention span of a sleep-deprived goldfish
You'll reread a paragraph about South Korean economic policy four times before giving up and spending hours on Buzzfeed to find out "Which Nineties Kids' TV Show Character Are You?"

Younger people think you have psychic abilities as you know when it's going to rain
Before going out, you consult your weather app. You don't just have an umbrella, you still have its matching cover. On occasion, your friends have stopped you from rushing up to shivering twentysomethings and offering them your coat.

Parties aren't for pulling - they're for proving you can make pastry
You've given up hosting house parties because you're fed up with finding cigarette ash in your bath. However, you're periodically seized by an urge to make something you saw Nigella do, and force friends to eat it off artfully mismatched plates. You have at least one ludicrous kitchen gadget and have thrown a dinner party to show it off. It has given you a permanent scar or serious injury.

You love being organised
You book a train trip as early as possible in the hope of scoring cheap first class seats. (You're still young enough to get overexcited about the free newspapers and biscuits.) That said, you almost miss your train after queuing for gin in a tin. But you'd rather saw your own leg off than get the bus ever again.

You look after your body
You know what a cold pressed juice is, and it's been well over a year since you last Googled "Crisps + vegetables + five a day?" Your moisturiser costs more than a night out and you hope that this somehow compensates for the fact you still occasionally pass out without washing your face.

Responsibility doesn't scare you as much as it used to
Having kids no longer seems quite the terrifying impossibility it once did. You don't even mind that they'll curb your partying. In fact, you've already curbed it, after a series of hangovers remind you you're no longer the invincible young buck you once were.

 The Daily Telegraph

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