The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

by Meg Jay

When you partner with someone, you have a second chance at family—both nuclear and extended—and I feel like you’re not taking it. I don’t think you realize what a missed opportunity this is.”

During the day, she was a dedicated professional who had published one novella for young readers and was working on a second. In the evenings, she lived a somewhat different life. She never chose her sex partners; she let them choose her. She became involved with almost any man who showed interest. She sometimes had unprotected sex. She often responded to the two-a.m. booty text on one of her various dating apps, accepting even the thinnest excuses about why the person did not reach out earlier.

Dating apps are simply yet another place—like a bar or a club or an ultimate Frisbee game or a picnic—where you might come across someone new.

office. Unless I asked, she offered nothing about how much time she spent on dating apps or how the exchanges made her feel. If she were simply enjoying her postmodern sexual freedom, then why all the secrecy?

“The only completely honest conversations I have are with music.”

wall, Cathy cruised through her twenties looking like an outgoing and easygoing teacher while her shadow was filled with anger and despair.

The things that once helped us feel better now get in our way.

A self-cure can take on a life of its own.

“For a while, music and sex helped you feel less alone, but now they are making you feel more alone.

In my experience, what matters more than whether someone is having sex is what they are telling themselves about why that is.

Whether we think other people want us is, too often, what determines our worth.

perceived desirability has a stronger influence than whether we see ourselves as friendly or popular,

data. It is not unusual for twenty-year-olds to come to my office and declare that no one will ever want them because no one has ever wanted them before.

High school and our twenties are not only the time when we have our most defining experiences; they are also the time when we have our most defining memories.

Then, as our social networks expand across our teens and twenties, we repeat these stories to others and to ourselves. We use them to feel a sense of coherence as we move from place to place.

Later, we will hear about how personality can change in our twenties—and it can. But it cannot change as quickly, or as dramatically, as the stories we tell about ourselves.

Twentysomething women and men who are dating down—or working down, for that matter—usually have untold, or at least unedited, stories. Cathy’s

Things get better when we let new and better people care about us or love us, or when we at least listen to—and believe—what they have to say.

All of these reasons are real—and important—but when you talk to twentysomethings themselves, you also hear about something else: cohabitation as prophylaxis.

You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, so that you could find out whether you really got along.”

Consistent with studies that report most couples say it “just happened,” Jennifer explained moving in with Carter this way: “It was just easier.

) Cohabitation might be more common than it was fifty years ago, but I’m not so sure that young adults have changed much in terms of how they go about it. As early as 1972, one researcher on the topic pointed out that cohabitation was rarely the result of a deliberate decision but rather was more of a “drifting into staying together.”

Research has shown that, regardless of relationship status—whether it is dating or sleeping together or living together or being married—couples who make thoughtful and mutual decisions are more dedicated, more satisfied, and more faithful. In contrast, those who avoid “the relationship talk” report more uncertainty all around.

This is why it is common for partners to have different unspoken—even unconscious—agendas for living together and for getting married too.

“He hadn’t turned into husband material, but our lives weren’t set up for us to act like adults. I sort of assumed it would come together once we were married.”

Too often, twentysomethings enter into what they imagine will be low-cost, low-risk living situations only to find it difficult to get out months or years later.

Switching costs are the time, money, or effort it requires to make a change. When we make an initial investment in something, switching costs are hypothetical and in the future, so we tend to underestimate them.

The problem is when the time does come, the switching costs seem bigger up close than they did from far away.

Moving in together can be fun and economical, and the setup costs are subtly woven in.

When I explained lock-in to Jennifer, she swallowed hard. “When I was a teenager, I gave my mom such a bad time about staying with my dad as long as she did when she obviously wasn’t happy. I understand her a lot more now.

“Getting married sooner started to feel more important than whether

One is, obviously, don’t cohabitate.

checking in with your partner about his or

commitment level befor...

in—and regularly th...

figure out whether you and your partner are in love or even in like (more on that later).

The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one and in today’s world that may mean before—and during—cohabitation.

When Eli said something critical about his girlfriend, he quickly undid it, softening any remark by reminding

“chemistry is not the same thing as compatibility.”

By this I mean two things: being alike in ways that matter and genuinely liking

who the other person is. Often

Dating and married couples do tend to be similar to each other in the ways just listed above.

are what researchers call “deal-breakers” but they are not necessarily “matchmakers.”

The benefit of dating, or even living together, before we settle down is that we get to learn something about our partners—and ourselves—along the way.

On the ship, I have felt so much happier without the constant stream of what people, even those I have never met before, are doing that’s bigger and better than me.

I guess it is all about the content one consumes and whether you can find the right balance between being online and offline.

Yet, when social media is available, most of us don’t choose to put our phones down.

I am curious about what the future will look like if more people start to realize the implications of never actually being present.

I mean really enter the workforce by getting a job that isn’t safe or easy, they are in for a shock.

Twentysomethings who don’t feel anxious and incompetent at work are usually overconfident or underemployed.