5 Differences Between Dating In Your Early 20’s Vs. Your Late 20’s

FLIRTING

Early-20s: He was giving me shit on iMessage about my taste in music and I totally burned him on how shitty his place is. That’s what I really like, you know? Someone who can take a good ball-busting and give it right back. I need someone that’s going to make fun of me. I’m a ridiculous person, you know? I need someone that gets that and doesn’t let me forget it and I need to be able to do the same to him.

Late-20s: There wasn’t a whole lot of back-and-forth actually. I was checking him out and I noticed he was checking me out, back. Then I just went up to him and was like, “Hey” and introduced myself… and that was basically it. I don’t even remember how to flirt. What’s the point? We both know what we’re getting at and don’t have time to dip each other’s pigtails in the inkwell.

DATE NIGHT

Early-20s: I have no idea what we’re doing, he just called an hour ago to see if I was free and said to text him when I wanted to come over. We’ll probably just watch movies, drink wine and eventually have sex. He probably won’t have any food, so I’ll eat something before I go over so I don’t get too drunk too quickly and bone him before we finish Lucy. I’m dying to see Lucy but I lost the debit card hooked up to my iTunes, cancelled it when the bank called and haven’t gotten a new one yet.

Late-20s: A couple days ago when he called to ask me out, he mentioned getting a reservation somewhere and asked me if there was any type of food I wasn’t interested in. I told him sushi, just because I knew I was going to have sushi on my date last night, but I kind of want sushi again. Is that weird? Anyway, we’ll talk about it when he PICKS ME UP because did I mention that he offered to PICK ME UP?

SEX

Early-20s: This is not like sex with my high school boyfriend. Or college boyfriend. It’s actually kind of hot. I mean, no, I didn’t love the spanking and didn’t necessarily come, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun. It was good for me, you know? And like, the spanking was kinky and I listen to Savage Love so I know all about how important it is to be GGG. Part of me is like, “Ahh! Does he think I’m a slut?” but the other part of me is like, “Who cares?” When do you think he’s going to call me?

Late-20s: He can’t eat pussy for shit. I deleted him from my phone.

FIGHTING

Early-20s: I love him so much. And I know I said this about guys in the past, but I mean it this time: I really, really thought he was the one. And now we’ve gotten into this fight about whether or not I’m secretly in love with my co-worker and the whole thing’s gone to shit! I mean, what am I going to do? Are we going to break up? We’re probably going to break up. I swear, if we break up, I’m going to kill myself. I know that sounds dramatic and I know I’ve gotten over other guys before him, but I like, cannot handle having conflict with this person. Plus Valentine’s Day is coming up and I don’t want to be single.

Late-20s: What it all boils down to is a lack of respect for my time. I’m totally willing to bend over backwards to make it to his work event on time, but when I ask him to get to my house at six so we can drink before the concert, he shows up at eight, doesn’t even call to let me know and is already buzzed. That just says, “My time is worth more than your time and P.S. I’m an irresponsible mess,” and I just don’t have time for that. Not with the way things are going for me at work. I mean, I’m ready to go make a down payment on a new car and I’m waiting for some drunk fool to show up late and disrespect me? Hell no thank you.

BREAK UPS

Early-20s: I took down all the shit I wrote about him on my Tumblr and apologized to his friend for sending him all of those drunk texts telling him what an asshole my ex is, but I still want to destroy his life. I’m in my early 20s! My prime! I will never be this hot, this fabulous or have this much ahead of me, and he wants to waste seventeen months of my life then dump me over text like what we had is nothing? The dude can’t even wipe his own ass properly and he wants to dump ME? Fuck him. His friends were all completely obsessed with me, he told me I was the funniest girl he’s ever dated and now I’m just like, some random? I have his mother’s number, you know. He’s lucky I haven’t called her. If I see pictures of him with another girl on Instagram, I’m probably going to call her.

Late-20s: What we had was very special, but ultimately the timing was off. I said a bunch of things to him in the heat of the moment that I really regret, and even though he said harmful things to me too, my behavior was not representative of my feelings for him overall. I mean, it didn’t work out. So what? Nothing works out until something does. It’s not like I wasn’t a little braced for the inevitable end of things, so I don’t know why I spent those three days crying in the bathroom at work. I guess part of me was saying goodbye to the person that I was in that relationship. And plus, we’ll manage a friendship eventually. At his heart, he’s a really good guy and neither of us is perfect. And I was never really amped on his penis to begin with. It’s a little small and he didn’t really know what to do with it, you know? Like, somewhere deep down I knew that that wasn’t the dick I was going to die next to.