When I was in my early Twenties I assumed everyone else I was hanging out with was too. Same deal in my late Twenties. Then I hit my Thirties and just thought we all did it together. No surprises this wasn’t actually the case. I only recently discovered some people I’ve loved and known for a decade are more than half a decade older than me. In the Party Years age doesn’t exist. When life takes hold and people move in different directions, have new priorities and progress through new phases of life, the gap becomes evident. Not in a bad way, you just start to see it more clearly.

I was sitting on a bench outside my work the other day when a woman walked past and looked at me – she circled back and sat down beside me for a chat. She was all killer yoga body, skin-tight lime green singlet, purple trainers, black sunnies, perfect brown Filipino skin. Then my mouth dropped open: she told me she was seventy two years old. She didn’t like hanging out with people her own age because she found them really boring. We talked for a while longer and then she told me to stand up – she darted around me, poking here and there, doing a body inspection. She said there was nothing at all wrong at the moment but if she sees me in a couple of weeks and I’ve gotten any wider she’ll yell out Fatty from across the street. She was a crazy bitch but I liked her. A nice reminder that being old doesn’t change who you are.

When you’re dealing with new friends and acquaintances, it doesn’t matter so much if your Age Gauge is a bit off. In a Boy/Girl situation though, it can become more important.

I had a crush on a boy who worked in one of the bottle shops in my neighbourhood for months. Each time I’d go in he liked to give me updates on what was going on: he told me a lot more than he ever asked me and for someone I hadn’t even introduced myself to I knew a fair bit about his life. I also always just thought he was my age – I guess my mind defaulted to the most convenient outcome. Every time we’d chat he’d reveal another piece of his life puzzle. One Sunday afternoon I went in to grab a beer and he told me he was really struggling: on Saturday night his brother had a birthday party and it was large. After he talked me through some of the highlights of the night I asked him how old his brother had turned: twenty one. We wrapped up our chat and I left, thinking back over some of the other updates he’d given me over recent weeks: enthusing about an awesome CGI shark video he’d found on YouTube; his current college course wasn’t going so well because he was distracted by the internship he’d started; one day I ended up giving him career advice and tips on how to get over his nerves to nail a job interview. I don’t think this guy could have been more than twenty five years old. I got over the crush pretty quickly after that. I’m not saying relationships can’t work with an age gap – I know couples with years between them who are rock solid and totally in love. For me, it’s more about the different stages of life you’re in and the experiences you’ve had or are yet to have.

I was chatting to my sister about the decades of life over the weekend. Her breakdown on it was that your first few decades are about learning the ropes of the world, getting educated on the basics. Your Twenties are for experiencing as many different things as you possibly can; your Thirties are for interpreting the experiences of your Twenties and working out how you want to use them to help keep shaping who you are as a person and how you want to move through life. It’s a good way of looking at it.

Lots of people I know in my generation, bridging X and Y, have pushed out the life phase timeline a good amount further than our predecessors – largely in the name of independence, travel, fun and generally living life. I always knew I’d do it, but I didn’t seriously recognise marriage and family as something I wanted until later in the game. And as long as I eventually do find my man, I figure it just means we’ve got fewer years to get bored and grumpy together.

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A few vivid memories of everyday life in the suburbs somewhere in New South Wales in 1986: Hanging out with my crew of hair-hacked Barbie dolls; Being petrified of burglars; Exercising my right to eat ice cream like it was a vital organ supplement; Idolising my fourteen year old neighbour who in my eyes was a fully-fledged woman who’d made it in life; Sitting as close as humanly possible to the TV every Saturday night from seven pm watching Dannii Minogue and the others sing the greatest songs ever on the greatest show on earth Young Talent Time.

It was also at this point, somewhere between the ages of four and five, that I can recall for the first time really thinking about Life in Fast Forward – what existence would be like in the future.

My flagship reoccurring vision wasn’t a pipe dream, I perceived it as inevitable: Future Me at sixteen driving a red convertible with my best friends, radio up, having fun all the time. I had a boyfriend too, but he was never in the car with us. He was very cool and very good looking though. That’s as elaborate as the visualisation ever got. But that was enough. I was loving the future.

I hit sixteen in Real Time in the late 1990’s and looking back, my projection wasn’t too far off – it was all just so incredibly less glossy than my wide-eyed Young Self had imagined.

I was definitely having a lot of fun with friends. My red convertible eventually emerged at seventeen, except it was my Mum’s Toyota Cressida when she would lend it to me and later, a Holden Astra called Madonna who I loved dearly even though she cost thousands of dollars in mechanics bills and had an interior that never stopped smelling like Plasticine. I also did alright in the hot boyfriend stakes, although some were undeniably cooler than others.

Great Expectations can take an unjust shine off things that materialise in reality to be pretty great in their own right. I still try so hard not to apply the future visionary gloss on life, but I always do it.

Like before I go on holidays. I envisage the villa or the apartment or whatever it is and picture different scenarios, like people hanging out in the living room on giant couches; sitting around a big wooden table drinking out the back by the pool; people dotted across the kitchen bench while others cook. When I actually get to the place though, the couch is L-shaped; the layout of the pad is all switched up; the deck faces east instead of west. It’s all still amazing, it’s just completely different to what I had imagined in my head.

If you give me a choice between high expectations or low though, I’m always going to push for up. Some people default to setting the bar a few rungs lower.

A bit like the bar someone set for me recently. I was visiting a friend at her place and her husband came over to join us for a chat. After a few customary How’s Life questions he asked me if I was seeing anyone at the moment. My answer was no. He then went on to provide me with an unsolicited evaluation of a very important part of my future life: in his view, considering I’m in my early thirties, there was really only two options in terms of the type of guys who were still out and about and available to marry.

Option One: the Divorcee.

Option Two: a loose guy who is lacking direction and doesn’t know what he wants in life. If he’s not married by his 30’s, that had to be the case.

I adore my friend’s husband, but this was a bit heavy going for a Saturday mid-morning. To say I was slightly underwhelmed by his forecast of my Man Future would be an understatement. Option One I am fine with. People make mistakes or get to a point where they decide they can’t resolve whatever issues it is that they are facing and need to move on. It was Option Two I didn’t particularly agree with. If he doesn’t happen to be a Divorcee, I’m pretty sure the guy I do end up marrying hasn’t been mulling around the house for years-on-end smoking bongs and watching infomercials waiting for me to call. He’s probably been out in the world doing stuff, like I have. I don’t think that’s me applying too much Future Gloss either.

There’s no doubt that there are some tough things about being Single. There’s also some great things. Like the fact that it’s actually really exciting knowing that the man you are going to tear up life with is still to come – a monumental new player to enter the people pool.

I know life doesn’t usually turn out the way you imagine it will, but it’s still fun thinking about the future. I’m sticking with Great Expectations too.

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I was in Byron Bay a few weekends ago for a friend’s wedding. And while I’m on the subject, another shout out to the beautiful Bride and Groom who not only did a stellar job of getting married in style but put on a fabulous mini fun fest for us guests.

The night before the nuptials extravaganza, my sister and I met some friends at a local pub. The group hang out kicked on for a few drinks before we said our goodbyes. Me and sis decided to stay on for a few more. We were deeply immersed in one of our signature talking vortexes when a guy approached us at our table: he asked us if we would mind looking after his stuff while he went to the bathroom. He was at the pub by himself, waiting for his brother who was driving up from down South. We took on our minder role and once he was out of earshot, did a quick situation assessment and agreed we’d ask him if he wanted to join us for a drink. He returned shortly after and asked us the same thing. Naturally, the answer was yes.

He was blonde, well dressed and hot.

What this guy revealed next, however, was bordering on unbelievable. A few minutes into our new friend hang there was a natural pause in the conversation – he took that opportunity to tell us that is was really nerve wracking approaching beautiful girls like us. He nailed the pick-up line. As our talk continued though, we realised he was being serious.

My immediate thought in response to the Boy Nerve Bombshell was ‘how the hell can it be difficult for you to approach girls?!’ But before I got to verbalise that one he answered it for me with his follow-up statement, which, loosely translated, was that girls can be really mean to boys sometimes. Our new friend had obviously been burnt once or twice approaching females, like, I’m almost certain, the vast majority of males have at one point or another in their lives at the heartless mercy of pretty girls.

Then the alarm bells started ringing. This guy was obviously a considered and well-thought-out product of the male species. How many other nice guys have been floating around not approaching us girls – I don’t mean me and my sister, I mean all of us girls – for fear of rejection when in reality we’d love it if they came up and introduced themselves.

This male minefield must be amended, one nice girl at a time.

It’s true though. Girls can be tough. I’ve had conversations with women who flat out say they won’t date Tradies. What’s that about? Firstly, you’re cutting yourself off from half the male population. That’s just bad math. Then, flip it and imagine this: you meet a guy you really like. You get to the career part of the People Reveal Process when he apologises and stops you – he just can’t be with a girl who works in an office job. It would be heartbreaking. But then again, you probably wouldn’t want to be with someone who judges the worth of a person based on how they earn their money, right?

On Friday night I was at a bar in the airport having a glass of wine while I waited for my flight that had been delayed. Once I’d sat down, I noticed the guy at the table in front of me. He looked interesting; nice looking; maybe a little bit rough. He had a tripod so I thought he might be a photographer.

Around thirty minutes later I was on the plane and settled into 24D when a guy leant down to get my attention: Bar Boy was sitting in 24E. We muddled through the initial standard Plane Stranger formalities then ended up talking for the length of the flight. He had a degree in Chemistry and the reason he looked a bit rough was because he was on the back end of a two week ski trip with eighty teenagers from the high school where he was a teacher. A year and a half ago he handed over the reigns of the graphic design business he was running with his brother and their ten staff to try something new. Before that he was living and working in South America and travelling the world. He’d escaped the fate of his fellow teachers who were currently on a twenty hour bus trip with the eighty teenagers because he had to make it back in time for a windsurfing competition the next morning.

My point is, when I first clocked this guy at the bar, I never would have guessed any of the things he went on to tell me about himself or his life. I wonder how people size me up before they know anything about who I actually am.

Maybe in your mind you see yourself ending up with a High Flyer or a Free Spirit. Whatever it may be, your Surfer might be in a suit the day you bump into him and your Banker might be in boardies because he loves the beach.

Girls, be nice to nice guys. You don’t know who somebody is until you give them a chance to tell you. Plus, nice guys make girls feel beautiful. And that always feels good.

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