'I'm 30 and single. And I only hook up with men 10 years younger than me.'

When you are single, people love to ask what you’re looking for. 

Fortunately, I know exactly what I want. I want to have fun. And I want to do it with tall, dark and handsome men in their early 20s. 

To date in the midst of a global pandemic, dating apps are your only friend. After downloading them and building my profiles almost immediately post-breakup - and with enough decent chats and dates to reinstill my confidence (and interest) in men over the last year, paired with my successful post-breakup glow-up and turning 30 with zero emotional turmoil - I was ready for a great summer. I was willing and open to pour A LOT of energy into giving these apps the best shot. 

Watch: The horoscopes, dating. Post continues below.

So when I sat myself down one temperate January evening with a red wine handy for a wild night of swiping, imagine the anticlimax of reading: Sorry, you’ve run out of profiles in your area! Expand your search.

Rather than up my distance to 30km to include the hinterlands (let’s be realistic peoples) – what else is there? Age. And we're all here to unpack how I found myself sliding that scale down instead of up…

• I'm open to new experiences? To be fair, this is not entirely unexplored territory for me. I’ve always had a tendency to date younger guys. 

• I'm avoiding commitment? It’s plausible. Where can I find my next relationship? Probably not with the second year USYD student who’s working part-time at Crown Casino and spending his other time vaping and planning his first-ever Contiki trip.

• I want to have fun? I say if you’re going to have fun – do it right. And once I clicked ‘save preferences’ and waited excitedly as the algorithm reconfigured itself, just WOW at the profiles that started piling in. These guys are hot. H O T. So much hotter than they were when I was that age. 

So how did it go? 

THE ONE WITH BRACES (22yo)

Can I distract you from the title momentarily to mention that this was a lovely date? 

He took me to a fancy bar – that he found and booked, and paid for - where I had one too many dirty martinis, got a little drunk and invited him back to my place before slowly sobering up during Mulan and realising I didn’t want this to go any further than sharing some late-night instant noodles.

I've never kissed anyone with braces when we all had them, and it’s unfortunate to now say that I have.

THE UNI STUDENT (21yo)

Asked for my Snapchat instead of my number (see hilarious TikTok below), but we did have a cute first date with a round of mini golf and sharing puffs of his pineapple vape. 

@concretecr0tchkiss

At least ask for my Facebook??

♬ Nobody - Mitski

Minus points for his profile getting banned on Tinder. I'm unsure as to how much of ‘I really don’t know what happened’ to believe, but I set aside this glaring red flag, because he was cute, and arranged a second meet which went like this:

• Me picking him up from the local bus stop as he didn’t have enough money for the 15 min Uber from the CBD but that’s okay because this is a safe space and I know what I’m getting into. 
• Today’s vape flavour was mung bean! This was puffed all night, the last thing he did before bed and the first thing he reached for (over me) in the morning.
• Saw a photo of my dad holding me as a baby in my bedroom and asked while looking back and forth, “Do you have a baby????”
• Couldn’t get hard, but proceeded to give it a go and then asked me if I had a small vagina that was hard to find.
• Said, “Can I ask you a huge favour? Could you go on top? I know girls don’t like being on top.” Oh no. Ladies, who is spreading this awful misconception around??  

THE GYM MANAGER (21yo)

Had an acceptable first meet at a local bar, where he told me he was going to up his age in the system at work to 25 to ensure people took him more seriously. I nodded sympathetically whilst admiring his boyish good looks. 

The evening came to an anticlimactic close as he didn’t bring a condom. Minus points for 'I didn’t know this was going to happen'.

Be open to all possibilities young man! 

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THE TRADIE (21yo)

I ended up at his place after a couple of decent hangs and chats. And this is where I enter the boys' dormitory room of all our nightmares combined. 

Milk crates were used as furniture in the living room NOT in that rustic, edgy way you can sometimes forgive people who sleep on a wooden pallet for. 

But this was nothing compared to the bathroom. He lived with his brother, and the bathroom had one beach towel. I notice this as I was standing in the middle of this bathroom, clutching my skincare and toothbrush to my chest whilst looking around for a sanitary place to put them down. No bathmat, no hand towel. Just one singular, all-purpose beach towel for all the going downs of a bathroom shared between two boys. The floor was wet (again, no bathmat) and the toilet bowl was screaming for Scalex (my toilet, on the other hand, thanks you Mums who Clean Facebook group!). 

My tour closed with the bedroom, where I saw three cockroaches, two in the evening as we were about to turn out the lights and one first thing in the morning. 

His mattress was soft and sagged in the middle and as much as I tried to scoot over to the edge I was rolled back into his body (I am not a cuddle sleeper). This didn’t really matter seeing as I didn’t sleep a wink with his unrelenting snoring and by the time the sun rose, I had to have a stern word to myself about what choices I had made that lead me to this position. He was totally gorgeous, but no man is worth a night without my full skincare routine and eight hours sleep. 

AND NOW?

The freedom to date is one of the many perks of being single and it really is amazing - for meeting new people, having new experiences and learning to be a version of yourself that you love with another person. 

But it’s a lot of work, and admittedly I find chasing down these gorgeous, pre-any-serious-commitment men to not be a hugely sustainable hobby whilst maintaining my adult responsibilities. You’ve got to be open to suggestions of meeting at 8 (PM!!), cancelling your 6am gym class and be okay that they ate tuna and rice for dinner last night. 

But if you’re at the same stage as me and open to having a bit of fun or trying something new, open up your age preferences! Yes, some of those experiences above are less than ideal, they might be more immature and potentially haven’t worked out a couple of d**khead kinks, but let’s be honest, how much of that can you say is exclusive to men in their early 20s? I’m having a great time, and life is for living. 

Beautiful experiences, beautiful men. Why not? 

Feature Image: Getty.

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