Why Developing Serious Relationships in Your 20s Matters

How about we all just chill the fuck out?<p>Stop worrying about whether you've left it too late to be the next Zuckerberg. Stop worrying about whether you've sacrificed your future happiness on the temple of Mammon. Just live your damned life, one day at a time. If you think that everything is going fine, you're probably right; If you think that things are all fucked up, you're also probably right.<p>Stop letting douchebags with blogs give you life advice. They don't know you, they don't know your life, they probably don't know much of anything. For all their bravado, they're working from a sample size of one, just like everyone else.<p>I'm sick of all these lifestyle posts on HN that are full of absolutism and false certitude. I'm sick of this attitude that your life is a dismal failure if it isn't micro-managed down to the last millisecond. I'm sick of being given life advice by weathly, privileged Americans who think they're wise because they've made it to their thirties without massively fucking anything up.

I've pursued many women in my life, and failed. I'm not especially tall, good looking, or rich, but I am smart, somewhat charismatic, and have a solid character.<p>Everything I've done in my adult life has been motivated by my desire to be attractive to women that I'm interested in; studying hard to get good grades, going to grad school, pursuing good employment, developing my personal and social skills, working out, everything. I'm getting better all the time, and I see my successes, but now in my 30s I'm not sure what the message is here.<p>Should I have just grabbed any woman that would have me, even if I'm not interested in them for the sole purpose of "developing a serious relationship"?

This article reminds me of a book I recently read: "The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter" by Meg Jay– I highly recommend it to anyone in their 20s.<p>Some portions of it apply more to the 20-something working at Starbucks while waiting for his band to make it big, and the HN crowd won't relate much to that, but there's plenty of other solid advice that I definitely related to.<p>I'm not usually big on the self-help books, but here it's a psychologist talking about examples she's had of patients dealing with their personal/professional/love life and how they addressed those things. It's a quick read- recommended.

Define a serious relationship! What's the significant property? A duration over 6 months? Or you already moved together? That's a difficult thing to do.<p>As far as I understood, Elizabeth is somewhere near her 40ies and I'm not sure if she even developed her serious relationship in her 30ies, as she is quite ambitious herself and comments, that she met her significant other at work... that happens a lot. But what really surprised me, that this almost got her and/or the other fired. I know a large amount of couples, who work at the same place and everything is fine!<p>And most importantly: What if, there was not this girl. This guy?<p>For me there was not this girl and I am 30. Of course, I had serious beautiful relationships with all the grinding imposed by one or two ambitious humans and also the nicer sides. But in the end, I'm single now and love to work on ambitious projects where I meet ambitious people!<p>Be, who you are and be proud of that. Love will hit you anyway and there is no need for a "task" or the hassle of developing serious relationships in your 20ies. It can happen to you any time, no matter of age. Even in your 80ies. If you are not convinced, watch this:<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1602620/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1602620/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1</a>

I found this honestly repulsive. It's one thing to shun those who would steer someone away from what feels natural, and it's another to offer life advice based on what one perceives to be the norm. Just because you got hitched early doesn't mean I want/have to.

Over the past few days, several articles about how crucial your 20s are have been posted to HN. I find them quite depressing. I can only hope that the blog cycle is like the news cycle, and that these posts will stop once it stops being the topic of the week.

This article is the most depressing thing I've read in a long time. It's like it hit on all of my inadequacies and faults, and told me that because of them, I am fucked.

This is pretty personal stuff to say using an account that's tied to my real name, but hey, we're all friends here now, so why not.<p>I'm in the target demographic for this post (I turn 29 on Tuesday), and I'm seriously considering making a conscious decision to be permanently single.<p>I understand that people find a lot of happiness in relationships, but I just don't think I'm capable of making room in my life for another person, and I don't think I'd make a particularly good boyfriend. I'd have to become a dramatically better person - something I don't know if I have it in me to do.<p>Does this make me somehow broken? Are there others who feel this way too?

&#62; Jobs are replaceable. People you truly love are not.<p>Thanks for sharing. A wonderful article which summarizes the whole purpose of why we live. Work should be the means to the living experience rather than the ONLY living experience.

I chose not to move out to the Valley so I could stay in a great relationship, and it has proved to be an extremely good decision. My life would not be nearly as enriched as it is if all I did was work, and had I moved there I too probably would have fallen into the trap of putting career above everything else. My bank account isn't quite as fat as it could be had I moved there, but then again I pay half the rent--less, actually--and spend less on pretty much everything else as well, not to mention I have no state income tax, and I still get a pretty high salary.<p>That said, I understand everybody is different. Although I will say that I too thought I was somebody who didn't need a relationship. I changed my mind when I fell into a great one and saw first hand what it had to offer.<p>There's also a quality to young love that I don't think you could ever find once you hit middle age. At the risk of sounding really shallow, young people are much more beautiful on average. But it's not just that. The experience of growing old with someone is considerably different from meeting someone when you've both already aged a good amount. These are experiences that you will never be able to have if you put them off for too long. The same cannot be said of work.

So many college graduates escape to Silicon Valley precisely to avoid these standard expectations for romance.<p>The article is wrong about what holds back relationships for 20s engineers. It isn't careerism as she claims. It's that the engineer is a militant libertarian, an autistic savant or a polymath of software development.<p>No normal woman wants to date a passionately unempathetic man. If you can't sympathize with poor people, or things that don't interest you (like humanities majors), how are you supposed to convince a normal woman you care about her feelings and her passions in spite of your voracious narcissism and ego?<p>OkCupid and polyamory are our sexual revolution, not "affairs." IVFs and surrogates are our reproductive revolutions. Technology exists to make the frightening Unempathetic Man capable of reproducing himself (and feeling sexually satisfied).<p>I feel extraordinarily lucky that I got to date a normal white girl my age at my school from 20-22 in college. I'm glad we still love each other as adults. I look down Mass Ave and wonder in terror how different my life would be if the women I met thought having two simultaneous boyfriends was okay.

I find this article a little condescending and trite, most of the things you "need to learn" are skills you develop from interacting with people in general, not just in personal romantic relationships.

If you view it as a deadline item to tick off a list, is it really a relationship?

I started a serious relationship three years ago, and it just ended few weeks ago when my ex cheated on me with one of my friend while I was in an exchange country.<p>Looking backward, there was a few signs of eventual disaster, but the conclusion was very unexpected (for me, my friends, her friends, and even her family).<p>However, despite the double betrayal, I think I have learned a lot from the whole experience (including the three years before the break-up). Not simply about relationships, but also about myself. So I kind of agree: if you can have a serious relationship, see it as an occasion to grow up. And if it doesn't work (and it seems that it probably won't, sadly :(), see it as another occasion to grow up. Don't be afraid of an eventual disappointement.<p>Disclosure: was my first relation. Definitely not an expert.

Responding to: "deathbed wishes rarely include, 'If only I had put another twenty hours a week in at the office! That slightly cleaner product release would have made all the difference.'"<p>Not that it matters all that much, but I honestly believe deathbed wishes often include "I wish I had more of an impact on the world". You can get that through relationships (by procreating), or you can get that through building stuff. Or a combination of both.<p>Trying to trivialize the hard work people do to release products is like trivializing the time people spend at the gym or the salon, attempting to stay attractive in order to establish better relationships.<p>It's a small part of something larger. Trying to change the world by building stuff is not something to be ashamed of.

I can only speak from my own experience but I found myself largely nodding my head (I've recently joined the early thirties crowd).<p>I worked in SV right out of college - Facebook was basically a blip on the radar and the coolest mobile phones still had physical buttons. I worked my ass off the first few years mostly because I had landed a great paying job (meaning I no longer was making 12/hr) and had no idea what kind of performance was not good enough. It was really fun and exciting for a while. I was fortunate to meet and marry someone that was right for me during my "later years" in SV. Being a proud geek I have been in a few relationships before but was not and am still not a relationship guru. The only thing I do know is that a (real, long-term) relationship will most likely push both of you to the max on everything... fun, happiness, stress, frustration, disappointment, etc, etc. While it has always had its ups and downs I feel very fortunate - the tech stuff is fun, I still enjoy it but the relationship, family, kids etc makes life really dynamic (sometimes in ways you may not like but its part of the deal).<p>I know I may sound like an old man but I think Id tell any aspiring techie coming out of school to try to make it a priority to figure out if they want to be married (and if so obviously to whom) and if they want to have kids. (As a note there is nothing wrong with not wanting these things) From my own experience I've felt that in your 20s (within the tech world) there are mostly only socioeconomic influences that deter you from going that route whether its the cost of living in the city or a professional dream that seemingly needs your full-time dedication. While it is not a ticking time bomb there definitely are certainly some fuzzy limits on the time you have to do these things that seem to come faster than you might think. (I dont want to get into a discussion about menopause or marriage later in life but I think its healthy to recognize the marriage/kids stuff does slowly get progressively harder later in life for most people).<p>Anyhow for me around 30 life started to look a little bit different to me. I like my work but its just a piece of my life. I used to spend 90% of my time working in tech or going home and playing with tech. I still do so to some degree but I have to admit that Im glad its no longer my only primary thing Im involved with.

Saw this thread when it had just 2 points and hoped it won't get upvoted since it's just -- sorry to say -- a useless post full of misinformation without delivering any message. I highly doubt the author has enough experience with building relationships, getting laid, get the right one and so on:<p>Now, since it's on the front page my view. You have two options:<p>Either you spend your time in your early 20s chasing women and spending all your time on building relationships and getting laid or:<p>Start at least 5 startups until you are 25 and hope that one of them gets kind of profitable or even better and you do an exit. Starting later is getting harder and harder, you are spoiled by high salaries and laid back office work and suddenly you have a child and it's getting to risky to start anything. The experience you make as an employee hardly help you as an entrepreneur but you need to fail often as an entrepreneur -- every failed startup brings you tons of experience and closer to a successful company.<p>Back to the girls: if you got successful with your startups you don't have to think about relationships and girls -- you'll send so much self-confidence and they're will be tons of opportunities. And even if you still do startups which didn't succeed you have much more to tell then any office drone. You'll have much more opportunities than those who desperately looking for the SO without having a life or anything to tell. That doesn't mean that you should omit any social life or getting laid while building a startup, it just means don't focus on this, focus on being an entrepreneur.

I did a startup then got out for precisely the same reasons the author states.<p>You won't always be young, but a startup at any age is always possible. Since money will never be able to buy time (though I'd love to see a time machine or a reversal of aging), I chose the former. I don't regret doing a startup, but I'm happy where I'm at today. Getting my head out of the rat race has been one of the best decision I've ever made.

Do most people really live like that in their twenties? Getting laid all the time, unstable relationships and so on? I kind of thought that there was a lot of media hype in that story.<p>Anyway, I think the main thing is that having kids in your thirties is a lot more stressful, in the sense that you usually want to have a stable relationship before having kids together, and time is running out. There is that biological clock ticking, at least for women - while men have more options, it means having to find a significantly younger woman to have children with.<p>And once you have children, you realize that it would have been nice to be younger. It means being in better shape to play with your kids, being able to be there for them longer, and a higher chance to experience grandchildren.

The broad point here is a very important one.<p>I came to Silicon Valley in my late 20s. I'd already had a lot of relationship ups and downs. I got married not long after getting here. I'm now, um, older...<p>It's great for folks who are fresh out of college that a bunch of middle-aged VCs who missed the boat on Zuckerberg because after the dot.com boom they were "playing it safe" backing their MBA buddies in startups which went nowhere, are now desperately trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted and find the next Zuckerberg by investing in very young entrepreneurs. It's great. There is some brilliant innovative consumer apps that have come from this - diamonds in a pile of rhinestones admittedly, but they're real.<p>When I was 22 and my best friend were 21 we were being laughed out of every funding source we could find by suggesting that (this is in 1993/4 mind you) we set up an "Internet Service Provider" because we were European Physicists when the world wide web was created by and for European Physicists and we thought it was going to be big. "What is this Internet thing? ...It's an American fad, going nowhere... you're just two young techies with no business experience... etc." I am genuinely glad the environment is better today than it was then.<p>However (yeah there's a but)... it's breeding a generation of young technical talent burnt out on mediocre over-angel-funded startups with little real world life or experience. It's not that either end of the spectrum is right - it's that we've gone too far past a happy medium.<p>I used to run an internship program and I'd advise the young undergrads that they should get out and do the things they want to do after college, take risks, travel while you can and while you're young. So long as you have a good narrative, have learned a lot from your experiences, and take the opportunity to grow up and gain perspective on the world, people will forgive almost anything before you're thirtieth birthday so long as you're prepared to knuckle down and focus by then.<p>I don't think that's true today. We've created an environment where to be a first time entrepreneur over thirty is seen as questionable. By 40 even with experience if you haven't already had a home run it's VERY difficult to get financial backing right now. This is irrational of course. The idea that real world experience dulls your blade which would otherwise have been fresh, right out of college, is silly.<p>I am happy that I didn't spend my 20s just getting burned out. After we couldn't get our startup off the ground, we finished our degrees, did some real world work, got some life experience, and I don't think either of us was worse for it as a person.<p>I meet a lot of people looking around in their thirties and realizing, like this article says, that they've never really learned the broad range of interpersonal skills and relationship skills outside of the startup bubble.<p>Do what you love to do for work. Absolutely. But don't lay on your death bed wishing you'd worked less and loved more. Really. Don't do that.

Hmm---a bunch of 20s-40s men, well-versed in an area traditionally associated with lack of sex appeal, pursuing fame and fortune by taking on risk.<p>This is <i>not</i> that hard to parse.

Reading the article and reading the comments almost gave me a panic attack. Just broke up for real today (the breakup dragged on for few months.)... 3.5 years of relationship ended for reasons that I can never never understand.. Why is relationship so hard?

Zuck spent 50 minutes with his girlfriend a week when he was starting Facebook.

I think this isn't really a 20s issue. You should always seek balance.

Gender is so unbelievably, incredibly evil. Ban it until it's consensual.

&#62; It’s not a question of whether each of these things will happen; it’s a question of when.<p>Don't like how she comes off as "super relationship expert full of wisdom" here. I don't care how many relationships she's had, or how old she is, not all relationships are created equal, and these things she calls "inevitabilities", while certainly common, are <i>not</i> inevitable. Being in a relationship with that mindset could just turn it into a self-fulling prophesy.<p>As just one easy example, you don't have to have children, so her comment about kids doesn't apply to any couple that decides not to have kids.