21 Things People Born In The Early 80s Are Currently Experiencing

1. You’re just past the OMG-I’m-thirty stage and have started to feel grateful that you’re not yet forty. Phew (for the time being!).

2. Exercising is actually kind of about your health at this stage instead of just a vanity play.

3. The fashion trends from your childhood have circled back to haunt you. You never thought you’d see oversized, off-the-shoulder shirts and leggings again, but there they are, reminding you that you’re older than the people for whom neon is a new thing.

4. You have enough of a grasp on pop culture to get the gist of what a twenty-something means when they drop an Internet acronym you’ve never heard. But for full comprehension, you have to look up whatever they said on Urban Dictionary later.

5. Reading US Weekly is no longer your favorite guilty pleasure because you have no idea who thirty to fifty percent of the featured celebrities in the magazine are. Plus, it’s depressing to learn that so many of the celebs you once worshipped have reduced themselves to attempting a Dancing With The Stars comeback. And that your favorite childhood TV shows and movies (My Little Ponies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.) are getting the lame sequel treatment.

6. Technically (according to Wikipedia, at least), you’re a millennial. You hold onto that title because it makes you feel young, but you know in your heart that the core of Generation Y had Internet access way earlier in life than you did.

7. Everyone you know is either seriously dating someone, or already married. It’s not that you don’t like couples-only activities, but you definitely miss asking friends “What are you up to this weekend?” instead of the now standard “What are you guys doing?” You also miss the days when you got to say “I” a whole lot more than “we.”

8. You have some divorced friends. And an ongoing bet with your significant other about the couple in your circle that’s most likely to split next.

9. If you’re not a parent yet, the fact that you’ve beaten teen pregnancy and managed not to get knocked up by accident throughout your twenties no longer seems like a reason to brag. Instead, you worry that never getting pregnant accidentally means you must be infertile.

10. Your Facebook newsfeed is an ode to friends’ adorable babies. You “like” every single baby photo, but with each click you can feel your social media editorial integrity slipping away, one giggling, drooling, pixel at a time.

11. Some of your acquaintances who were total wrecks throughout their teens and twenties have lapped you in the race to settle down. You follow these people on Instagram, gawking at every trace of evidence that the fratastic dude you remember for his beer can crushing prowess is now donning a “#1 Dad” t-shirt next to his Lily Pulitzer clad wife at the local country club.

12. A few of your college classmates are already self-made millionaires. You admire these people for their financial success, but deride them as “lucky” behind their backs while secretly wondering what you could have done differently.

13. But it seems way too late to change careers. So you make the best of your current job situation and start picking up various hobbies to sate the constant, burning desire for fulfillment.

14. “Renting is a fool’s game,” is a phrase you frequently overhear at group dinners and cocktail parties. More and more of your friends are moving to mid-sized cities and suburban areas where they can afford to buy property and “the school’s are good.”

15. Plans with friends have to be made weeks in advance because everyone’s schedule is so damn complex. Gone are the days of meeting someone for a drink on a whim at 9pm.

16. The whole notion of being a “weekend warrior” isn’t even an option any more (unless you want to booze until the wee hours solo on Friday and Saturday nights), because too many of your friends have either moved away, or have young kids and go to bed no later than 10pm.

17. Vacationing with other couples (and/or their kids) is a thing you do now, because at this stage you’ve been with your partner for so long that you don’t necessarily need a romantic getaway as much as you need to be around people you don’t see every single day.

18. There’s one other couple in your life you prefer to do most of your socializing with. At least one person in the foursome secretly dreams of spicing up their sex life by swapping partners.

19. You’re on the lookout for receding hairlines, graying, and wrinkles at all times. You can’t believe how young the junior executives at your office look, or the fact that they’re no longer within your age-appropriate dating bracket.

20. You know at least one formerly healthy person who’s been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, Diabetes, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or cancer.

21. But nothing gives you a stronger sense of your own mortality than hanging out with your parents, who are officially old and do old people things—like accidentally flushing their glasses down the toilet, failing to hear you correctly, or knocking a wine bottle over while reaching for the bread basket. The realization that you will one day be just like them is the most terrifying thing ever.