At What Age Did You Start Dating Seriously – And How Did You Balance It With Academics and Career?
So here's a little question for you guys: at what age did you start dating seriously? Would you say you've been permanently single, or that you've dated person after person in pretty quick succession? If you've always been partnered, what tips do you have for balancing academics and career with your love life?
As I've talked about before, I didn't really start dating seriously until my late 20s when I definitely had a marriage mindset, and I've always felt like a weirdo because of that — but over the years I've heard so many stories (mostly from the comments section here) about how a ton of people were like me and late daters.
I recently heard about a survey from the mid-90s that found that most female grads from my college (Northwestern) had “never had a serious relationship” by graduation — and thought, hmmn, maybe I'm not such a weirdo after all, at least among women who have been really focused on academics and career.
So let's discuss! At what age did you start dating seriously — and how have you balanced dating life with academics, career, and more?
For my own $.02 – I definitely had crushes and went on sporadic dates here and there in my 20s — but if it's possible I think I watched too many romantic comedies to have a really solid view of what dating was supposed to be.
In my youth, I had the naive idea that dating would lead to marriage, and I wasn't ready to be married, so the second a guy annoyed me I would stop flirting because ugh, who wants to be married to a guy who annoys me. (Plus, hello, I had college and law school and my career to think about, and, I thought, who has time for relationship drama when you're focused on all of those bigger things!) I also had the naive idea that one day, clouds would part, there would be some adorable meet-cute moment, and everything would click and I would be inseparable from my other half from that moment forward.
Which isn't to say that I don't think love should be easy — my husband and I have always had a very easy relationship, thankfully — but let's face it, the romcom movie idea of love is a bit oversimplified and more all-encompassing.
(That said: there are still some great fashion movies that are also romcoms — and I'm basically reading brain candy books that are romcoms, so obviously old habits die hard.)
SO: that romcom attitude didn't quite work out, and at a certain point I decided I needed to nudge the universe along by doing some serious Internet dating, in part because I wanted kids.
I approached it in true geek fashion and read books about finding time to date when you're super busy, signed up for the nerdiest Internet dating sites, and eventually joined some brainy charitable groups (like the under-40 groups for the New York Public Library).
I didn't really get any “hits” through all that, per se — I met some nice guys but not MY guy — and learned to cut my losses as soon as I rolled my eyes at my dates. I'm thankful I did it because I do think it prepared me for meeting my husband (at a friend's birthday party, at a bar), because all of those dud-dates helped me appreciate the chemistry and comfort I felt with him immediately.
So: I'm a weirdo, but a lucky one. But I have been fascinated to hear over the years how MANY women — particularly women who have done good in school and moved around for different degrees — just haven't focused on dating until they're far older than the romcoms and women's magazines would have you believe is appropriate.
So I thought it would be an interesting question to discuss: at what age did you start dating or seriously looking for a partner? If you dated during school, did you have to juggle your academics and your social life? What advice would you have for younger women who might be feeling like a weirdo, or feeling like it's “too late” to start dating?
Stock photo via Stencil.
I have a MM Lafluer jardigan that is slightly too long in the body and sleeves and also a bit big width wise. It is mostly rayon and is labeled dry clean only. I am thinking of hand washing in water to make it fit better. Terrible idea?
Terrible idea only if you’ll be upset if it’s ruined. Washing may change the texture.
I’d suggest taking it to a tailor instead.
Well, dry cleaning isn’t always an actually “dry” process: it frequently involves getting the garment wet. But rayon can be finnicky if you’re not doing this in a controlled (ie, professional dry cleaning) process…take it to a tailor.
I have the MM jardigan and actually have been putting it through my cold water wash and low heat dryer with no issues whatsoever! I found myself only getting one wear out of dry cleaner, and felt like I wasn’t getting my money’s worth out of it, so I decided to risk it and throw it in the wash! No shrinking and no pilling! And now I can wear it every week!
I didn’t ever intentionally avoid OR start dating “seriously” — I just met “the one” during college, neither of us could picture life without the other, and we married during law school. Dating and marriage didn’t have any adverse impact whatsoever, in fact it made law school and law firm life SO much easier with someone at the same stage who “got it.” So there was no pressure that I should be working less, socializing more, spending more money (since we were living on student loans or prioritizing paying them off), etc.
Similar, except my college BF, while kind, was not the one and we broke up shortly after graduation. But I met my husband through friends in law school and we’ve been together ever since. I never treated dating like a job, but never avoiding getting into a serious relationship either. I went to a stereotypical high-achievers college (HYP type) and I don’t know too many people that hadn’t been in a relationship by graduation, so the stat about most female Northwestern grads not having had a relationship at graduation is very surprising to me.
I had a similar experience. I didn’t intend to start dating seriously in college, but I met a really wonderful person right at the start of freshman year. We broke up briefly after college, just before I started law school, but got back together shortly thereafter, and we’ve been together since. He’s kept me sane, grounded, and comforted throughout college, law school, my mom’s passing, the bar exam, and the start of my career. He’s always been understanding, supportive, and respectful (though he himself didn’t do law school), and I really feel like I just got lucky. I certainly wasn’t looking for something serious at the time, but I happened upon someone amazing for me, and my relationship has never been a hindrance in attaining my academic/career/social/financial goals.
I’ve never dated seriously. I was that person who scoffed at rom coms and didn’t believe in putting in effort for guys- after all, I was majoring in Biomedical Engineering and I had more important things to do. Of course, this is why I ended up in the rom com scenario, bumping into a certain guy many times until we finally sat next to each other at a dinner party… and became inseparable.
All that aside, we were both in the same major, so it’s helped in terms of being study buddies and mentoring each other in our careers. 10 years later, we’re still at it!
In terms of advice, I would tell women to know their long term priorities. I’m not interested in having kids, so there was never a rush to find anyone. However, I’m passionate about my career and would never settle for anyone who wouldn’t take it seriously.
I did not start dating seriously until I left law firm life at 30 yrs old. I went on dates and hooked up to my heart’s content, but prior to that time I had neither the time nor the desire to commit myself to dating in a way that would have been meaningful for another person looking to seriously date.
I have never wanted to have children and am on the fence about whether I want to get married, so this timeline suited me just fine. I am in a relationship now, but I have been very clear from day one about the limits on my time due to other things I am involved in that I don’t want to give up. So far, it works, but if at some point he wants more than I am willing to give, then I will start again. I’m still not convinced one person should be with only one person all of their lives, so I am probably an outlier in this discussion.
I also didn’t start dating seriously until I left BigLaw at 33. At various times before that, I tried to start dating with the goal of a long-term relationship but then I would get caught up with work and have to cancel dates and the guys wouldn’t understand and … it just didn’t work.
In contrast to you, I do kind of regret that decision. I do want to have kids and am starting to become convinced that I will not find someone to have them with. I’m not sure what I could have done different, besides leave biglaw earlier, which I tried to do. How much I regret it will probably depend on how my future turns out.
I had a very similar experience (I left Biglaw about a month after I turned 34). I also tried to find time to date while I was in biglaw with sort of an abstract goal of finding a long-term relationship . I always struggled with balancing the all-consuming job with having the time and space for another person in my life, and in hindsight, I can see that I was making a halfhearted effort. I would echo New New Englander’s advice above to know your long-term priorities, to be honest with yourself about what they are, and then to design your life accordingly.
I always tried to date – in HS was terribly unsuccessful. In college had one serious BF, it was a conflict-free relationship, then he broke up with me. Met DH when I was a 2nd year in law school (we were very early adopters of online dating) and never looked back! I always wanted to be partnered and feel lucky that I met him so young and that we were able to start having kids ‘early’ (for our friend group).
Im alot like you. I too dated from an early age, but never to seriously b/c the guys were not that great and dad was NOT supportive of the 1 or 2 I brought home to meet him. Then I met my ex, Alan, and dad was not crazy about him either, but by then, I was in law school, and I thought he had potential as an eventual CPA, as he liked numbers. But as fate would have it, he decided once I got out and got a good job, that he would withdraw from active employment, perferring that I bring home the bacon. Dad was furius, and urged me to banish him. It was not that difficult a decision once he became a drinker, and he started stinking up my apartement all day while I worked. So I guess the women here in the hive must decide whether the desire to have a man in your bed outweights all of the negatives of having guys around 24/7 when they get under our skin.
In my case, I enjoy men for some obvious things, but they MUST be willing to take our needs into consideration, and when they don’t, it is EGGZ-OVER for him, as it was for Alan. If others in the HIVE have other ideas, please share, and we can all benefit from your experience! YAY!!
I never put much thought into this. I had my first serious boyfriend while in high school. We were both still very focused on school and extra curriculars. We broke up after about 6 months of doing distance when he went away to college.
I had an on again off again boyfriend in college. We had a lot of chemistry but he was definitely not the one.
I met my now husband in law school through friends. I am so happy I met him whe I did because i had way more time in law school than in biglaw and it was really great to have a very solid relationship already established while in biglaw. I honestly don’t know how people in big law find time to date and feel so lucky to not have to do that.
I never treated dating like a job. And to be honest if I did I never would have met my husband who most definitely does not fit a checklist I would have put together for myself if I had. My HS and college boyfriends were the “type” of guy I thought I’d end up with and my husband is very different and very much perfect for me in ways I would have never guessed.
Started dating at 19, had 2 bfs (1.5 y, 1y) then started dating my husband on my 24th bday… got married when I was 28… and now I’m mid 30s. We met in law school and have always supported each other’s careers. I can’t imagine I’d have gotten as far as I’ve gotten without him.
I honestly don’t know how I’d be able to enter the dating pool again if I needed to- I’m clueless in pre-establishing dating etiquette. And while I tried marathon online dating inbtwn bfs, I didn’t have much success at it.
I met my husband in high school. We were friends, and started kind of hooking up around graduation, then went off to separate colleges. We would run into each other when we visited home but didn’t really keep in touch very well. Then he ended up transferring to my college (for other reasons, not because of me.) We literally bumped into each other at a football game and were inseparable ever since. We married right after graduation when we were 22. We balanced school and our relationship by just making time for each other and being understanding. Sometimes in law school hanging out meant sitting next to each other studying, or taking study breaks together to go for a run together, or whatever. We learned to be supportive to each other and that has built a solid foundation for the next stages in our lives (we are now 36 with kids, careers, aging parents, etc….)
I tried to seriously date after law school, but got burned out and am basically on hiatus now.
It never occurred to me to do it during high school, because I came from a very small high school, had one crush that was unrequitted, and just wasn’t interested in the other boys. It also never occurred to me to date during college, because I had male friends, but as a tall gangly college kid, a lot of them were intimidated or uninterested.
I ended up going abroad for a semester, unwillingly, about a month after a family member’s health scare. I cried daily leading up to it and tried to cancel it, but the fees were paid and non-refundable so I went, determined to just sulk, study alone, and call home a lot. I am not a believer in a single soulmate, but I believe I met a soulmate during this semester. We dated for about 3 weeks in person, and about a year after that long distance – skyping and calling every day, until we realized there was no feasible way to move to the same country in the next 5 years. So we reluctantly but mutually broke up. Certain things about that country will remind me very strongly of him, and to this day I hope he’s happily married with kids like he always wanted.
Since then, it’s been a series of nonstarter online dates and non-mutual interest among friends. A handful of friends were into me, I couldn’t see them that way, and vice versa. I’ve kind of come to accept that it may never work out, so I’m dating sedately and not trying that hard right now since I’m again super busy with work and projects.
I was the type that always wanted a boyfriend, and had stupid dramatic relationships in college and law school. I guess I thought I was seriously looking for a partner then. What changed for me was when I finally landed (third try) at the firm I’d been chasing since I tried to get a summer associate position there. A switch flipped and I decided I would not settle. I felt like the guys who I dated before were attracted to me because I was a take-charge type. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to take charge all day at work and in court and then let someone else take charge, i.e simple stuff like get the dinner reservation, suggest the movie . . . after hours. I decided I would only date take-charge guys. I’d issue ultimatums, not to a guy, but to myself, if things weren’t going as I expected. I met The One almost immediately. He passed a thousand tests he didn’t know he was taking. We have been married more than 20 years. Sounds goopy when I write it but it’s all true.
P.S. this was all in my late 20s.
I’m so curious about the thousand tests he didn’t know he was taking.
So am I. Would love to hear!
Maybe they’re silly in retrospect. They started small. If he doesn’t ask me out for Saturday night by Wednesday, I won’t be available. If he is not freely calling me his girlfriend by x date, I need to date around. If he doesn’t suggest that we see each other’s (local) family on Christmas. If he doesn’t say the L word by Christmas.
Now he flunks regularly. If he doesn’t change the cat litter before he leaves for work, I will lose my mind . . . KIDDING!
I went on dates with a fair number of guys in college without Dating, although I had one or two near misses. I started officially Boyfriend-Girlfriend Dating someone at the very end of my sophomore year, and then we got engaged near in February of my junior year (his senior year), whereupon the second-nearest miss remarked that he’d never taken me for a “ring by spring girl.”
I wish this had been posted as a morning rather than afternoon post. I started dating in in a brief 6 month hiatus between biglaw jobs at the age of 27, after taking care of my sick parent who passed away around then. I never dated in hs, tried to date half-heartedly in college and law school, but always prioritized getting the highest grade and being academically successful above all else. I recently left biglaw and coincidentally am also starting to date seriously again. It does seem that not dating in school aside, being in biglaw played a significant role in my delaying dating past the age of 24. I guess if I could do it all over again, I probably would have left biglaw sooner after about two-three years, after I paid off my loans and had decent savings. Of course, if I could go back even earlier, I would have joined more clubs and tried to date more actively in college, and also taken some time off between college and law school. Having gone straight through, I didn’t appreciate how difficult it would be to find a good match when you are outside of an academic setting. One thing that makes it harder is that I am a virgin and want to keep it this way until i get married. It gets increasingly harder to find men who have similar values who are not weird/unattractive/unsuccessful the older I get. If I had taken a few years off between college and grad school, I would have valued the opportunities to meet more suitable men in law school. If I have a daughter, I’m going to encourage her to date in as early as high school lol.
I also thought that dating would lead to marriage, so I wouldn’t date anyone I wouldn’t consider marrying. How stupid! Dating is for figuring out what you want in a relationship.
I got together with my ex husband in college and divorced at 34. So, I didn’t start dating until 35, which was very discombobulating for me. I’ve found that I get really focused on dating for a while and then get tired of the time suck of online dating, so I’ll take a break for a month or so. I guess that has been my strategy of balance.
I “balanced” dating with engineering school and law school by not dating (or dating for limited runs) people who sucked up all of my time. There’s nothing romantic about not getting your work done because he just has to be with you at every moment.
The problem is that men my age didn’t understand what I wanted, and interpreted it as a challenge or that I only wanted hook-ups. (You do you, but that was NOT me.)
I married in my mid/late 30s, finally, and my husband supports my career. The right relationship does make it a lot easier.
That doesn’t mean that you take a relationship that is forcing you to choose between your career and keeping the peace, and try to make it “right”; it means you leave that relationship, even if it isn’t “bad” or your friends think you are a “great couple.”
I have moved around every 4-5 years or so, recently out of economic desperation (2008 graduate) for the past 20 years, and the last 2 cities were places I didn’t want to live in permanently. However, it seems that most straight couples move based on the man’s job. Has anyone here navigated dating while (1) over 30 and (2) living somewhere you don’t like much, but you’re there because that’s where your job is located?
I have. I definitely watched out for the guys who were well-established in and loved the town I didn’t love (ie. family there, grew up there). I looked for guys from elsewhere, who had relatively portable jobs and the kind of worldview that meant they would be open to moving. For me, a willingness to live internationally was important. Even better if they had lived (not just traveled) internationally, so I knew they could hack it.
I never did big law, but I did spend some time doing intense criminal law work. I just hoped for the right guy to come along (without much dating at all) until I was about 25, then started doing online dating off and on for the next ten years, through some truly disastrous relationships. Mostly, I had to learn how to get rid of guys who didn’t treat me well and mentally move on. I finally met a guy with whom I just clicked right after I turned 36, on tinder. We got married almost three years later. He is worth every minute of the wait.
I had two BFs in high school; one went to private school and we were set up by a mutual friend but he then dumped me for one of my friends (K) and one who chased me and I figured out I liked being wanted more than I liked him. In college I dated a few people casually and had a 1 year LD relationship with T, whom I met while busting K (we stayed friends) and her school. Dated J after meeting at my second post-college job, moved in, got engaged, freaked out at getting married at 25, moved out, and went to grad school for two separate degrees. Had crushes but didn’t date until GS#2, where I had a FWB for a year with one guy and a tortured year of dating with R, who was majorly struggling with his sexuality (but not telling me so) and constantly gaslighting me. Traumatized me enough to wait about 10 years before trying online dating (although several relocations and a parent’s death played in). The few guys I meet all had so many issues – if not subscriptions – that I stopped. Then I bought a house, started fixing it up, helped a sibling through a divorce, let some friends crash in my house when they wanted to move to the area and needed to build up savings…
And then one day I realized how much I hated my job and wanted a new one. So I started looking up people I used to know who might live in my city. T was one. And he was separated and working out his divorce settlement and we started having coffee and … 7 or so years later we are quasi living together (we each own houses) and I am in a great relationship for the first time in my life. All the things that worked for us in college still do, and all the ones that didn’t don’t matter any more.
We’re mid-50s, btw. He has kids; I never wanted my own.
“The few guys I meet all had so many issues – if not subscriptions – that I stopped.”
LOVE this phrasing.
I started to share my story, but really? It’s pretty boring. I wasn’t sold on kids or marriage. Married in my 30s, divorced 10+ years later after realizing my situation was like Senior Attorney’s situation, in terms of the way she was treated in the marriage.
I am open to dating, although I’ve never enjoyed it, and I have found dating apps to be excruciating (a couple of guys on Bumble mistook it for Tinder). In the meantime I am doing some work to keep from putting myself in that situation again (for so long, at least!), and doing things I enjoy. It can be tough, sometimes.
I wasn’t interested in boys in HS and early college and was very very focused on academincs.
Started dating one of my best friends at 27, relationship brought out the worst in me and a brought up a whole host of personality/family issues I didn’t realize existed (not entirely the first boyfriend’s fault). He broke up with me at 28. Had full on quarter life crisis.
Read Ali Binazir’s Tao of Dating and Mark Manson’s Models (for guys, poorly edited but admittedly good content focusing on boundaries and vulnerability) and some other books and shifted mindset and worked to dating people I like and ditching nonstarters as soon as I rolled my eyes, and setting strong boundaries. Dated on and off (mostly through Coffee Meets Bagle, 1-2 dates/month) but no longer than 3 months for any single person at a time.
BigLaw didn’t help, dating didn’t consciously take a back seat but it’s hard to justify spending time with someone if you’d rather sleep / work out / get some work done than spend time with them. Liking someone more than sleep is actually a pretty high threshold to cross when consistently working 70-80 hours a week.
Was a virgin until age 30 because I didn’t meer anyone I liked enough to risk getting pregnant and getting married (I’m not religious, but abortion is illegal where I am, and single motherhood w/o marriage is pretty much social suicide — not saying it’s good, but super conservative society here).
Met current bf online 2 years ago and have overall satisfying relationship, it is by no means perfect and had some rocky communication/cultural divide issues but we’re willing to work on us. Still in BigLaw, TBH I think relationship only could take off because both of us are super busy that we rarely text and focus on in-person time.
I met my husband while an undergrad with 2 years left and he was a recent grad. I had only had a few boyfriends before that and had been single for about 18 months at that point in time. We met at brunch at a dive bar when we both weren’t looking for anything. We became official a few months later, dated for about 4 years before getting engaged, married 18 months later, and now we’ve been married for 2.5 years and are expecting our first!
It was hard balancing dating, sleep overs, etc. while I was an undergrad in a very intensive, hard major (Engineering) but we got through it. I did consulting right out of undergrad and was gone a ton. Ended up moving to a role 18 months later that didn’t require travel as my personal life was going up in flames. I’m now wrapping up a part-time MBA while working full-time, which has also been hard. Thankfully he works long hours anyways, so me being in class during week nights or having school on the weekends isn’t a huge deal.