-The first day of freshman year, I sat in my dorm room as everyone else on the hall moved in. Each time I heard footsteps, I cocked my head to listen closely in the hope I could glean any evidence that my new neighbors were female, hot, and promiscuous. I was eighteen at the time and had never before felt such anticipation. Eleven days ago, as the last seconds of my twenties ticked away and I prepared to celebrate my thirtieth birthday, I can’t say I felt the same level of excitement. I was both nostalgic and apprehensive. In fact, now that I’m thirty – wow, it’s weird even saying that – I feel a bit self-conscious. Like the next time I get drunk before noon or bang a chick whose first name I’m fuzzy on, I’ll somehow get reprimanded for behavior inappropriate for a thirtysomething. Even though I’m equidistant from both, I just feel a lot closer to twenty than I do to forty. Thirty gets a bad rap – but I’m not ready to give up the good life.  

-Hitting on chicks younger than me has suddenly become slightly awkward. “Oh, you’re twenty-one? Cool. I’m twenty-nine,” sounds fine – something about us both being twentysomething is strangely comforting. But even though the age difference is the same, saying, “Oh, you’re twenty-two? Cool. I’m thirty,” just sounds so very wrong.

-I have some friends who are still trying to figure out what they’re doing with their lives. I hope they realize that thirtysomethings don’t have that luxury. If you’re going back to grad school and you’re older than thirty, congrats. You’re that weird old dude.

-I was in New York a few weeks ago and ended up at this NYU house party. That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t happen in LA. You can’t just stumble into a UCLA party without looking like you did it on purpose. People will ask you how you got there. But in Manhattan everything is fair game. Me and my buddies were welcomed with nary a glance. Of course, we said we were twenty-five.

-People keep telling me that your thirties are the best years of your life, and I believe them. The only problem is that I was told that about my teenage years and my twenties. I smell a conspiracy. If fifteen years from now someone tells me that “life begins at forty-five,” I think I’ll know the jig is up.

-You know how you can never tell a kid’s age when they’re between, say, six months and twelve years old? I’m finding I have the same problem with twentysomethings. I’ve already completely forgotten the benchmarks. A chick tells me she’s twenty-six and I don’t understand why she looks at me curiously when I ask if she just graduated college.