Firstly, I'll say that in terms of finding a long-term partner, your prospects over the next few years are probably far better than you think. It's easy to imagine that you've missed the boat because so many people have settled down by your age; while it's true that the number of eligible single women at your age is lower, that's not really relevant - the ratio of eligible men to women is now very strongly in your favour.

There are a lot of women in their mid-30s who are absolutely desperate to settle down and have kids, because they know that their fertility is starting to decline. A minority are on the shelf because they're just awful, but most are still single for entirely understandable reasons - they didn't want to settle down because they were focussed on their career, they got stuck in long-term relationships that went nowhere, or they didn't make the leap because they were experiencing perfectly normal anxieties about finding, choosing and committing to the right person.

Conversely, a large proportion of single men in their mid-30s either don't want kids or are unwilling/unable to commit to a serious relationship. Men tend to be less interested in committed relationships and generally tend to be less emotionally mature, which creates a severe shortage of marriageable men. That gap between supply and demand combined with the ticking clock is absolutely brutal for women of your age; this makes you hot property, even if you aren't exactly the perfect man in other ways.

If you aren't getting a lot of serious attention from women, you're probably making some very basic and easily remedied mistakes in your dating strategy. Obviously I don't know the details of your situation and I'd be loath to give any specific advice because of that; With that said, if you aren't actively seeking a partner and you aren't loudly declaring the fact that you're eager to settle down and have kids, then you should really make that a priority.

More broadly, when you start seeing grey hairs and wrinkles in the mirror, it's very natural to start wondering what life is about and whether you're making good use of your time on earth. That's obviously a daunting and possibly distressing stage of life to go through, but it's also an opportunity to reflect on what matters to you. You might do that and come to the conclusion that you're generally happy with how you're spending your time, which is great. You might come to the conclusion that you've got into a bit of a rut, in which case it might be time for you to push for a promotion or make a sideways move into something that might suit you better or give you better prospects for advancement. You might realise that you've reached a dead-end and need to do something more radical - retrain in a completely different field, move cities or even emigrate.

Only you can know what's right for you, but I do think it's important to remember that you're less than half way through your working life and in many ways you're only just getting started. People often feel that their options get narrower as they get older, but in most respects the opposite is true - the skills and resources you've accumulated over the years give you a great deal of opportunity if you can think creatively about how to use them. Contrary to the stereotype, the average age of a successful entrepreneur is 47.

I don’t have much to offer, OP, except a reassurance that I feel identical. I’m a cool and charming weird class clown, with a slightly below-average job (you might have a better job than me), a 36th birthday a few months ago (so again, you might be better) and an absolute sheer terror that I’m just going to be this superficially lovable background character for the rest of my life, only more and more pitiful as time moves on. If you feel a need to structure your existential crisis, I think there are five points in life that you can measure happiness with: friends, job, romance, family, hobbies. You’re all right in terms of friends, and job, and maybe even hobbies, but if you are as identical to me as I suspect, it’s starting to worry you how “your family” is still your parents and possibly siblings rather than your wife and kids.

Alas, I don’t have much advice. The dream is to pursue a hobby and make friends with a similar woman whom you marry and have kids with, but like the above poster says, if you aren’t meeting people that way, that’s the thing you need to focus on. Do your hobbies help you make new friends? Beware if your hobbies are just seeing your existing friends in the pub: they probably don’t want to introduce you to new people, and thirtysomethings don’t have wide social circles anyway. If there is something you want to learn, maybe look for a place that teaches it.

>>32870

>if you aren’t meeting people that way, that’s the thing you need to focus on

Most people are just far too passive about finding a partner. It's understandable because of old romantic ideas about serendipity and the natural anxieties about putting yourself out there, but it's just dreadfully ineffective. How many hours a week do you spend actually looking for a partner? How many single women know that you're on the market and you're serious about a long-term relationship? I know that the modern app-centric dating market is a dispiriting hellscape, but if you aren't putting the work in and making the most of the opportunities available, then you need to have a word with yourself.

I decided long ago that I don't want kids, people told me I'd change my mind but I haven't yet. Maybe I will worry about that if I ever do, but I doubt it. So at least that part is easy not to worry about. On the other hand it makes finding a partner difficult because even the most resolute "childfree" woman usually does change their mind about it, and by 33, pretty much every woman I meet is square in the middle of that very particular feminine midlife crisis. The ones who still are secure in that conviction have a whole raft of other issues.

As with many things in life though, I think a lot of this comes down to social convention, peer pressure, fear of being judged. When I think about what I want, I also find myself asking: Do I REALLY want those things, or is it just that I don't want people to think I'm a loser when I'm a single 40 year old bloke who spends his weekend playing with toy soldiers? Am I going after a woman for the actual companionship or is it just so I can tell with my work colleagues about what we watched on the telly together, instead of what videogames I've been playing? For me the answer is ultimately yeah, I do, I just need a pretty specific kind of woman who sees the world similarly to me; but I think for a lot of people the race to settle down and so on is as much about what people will think of them if they don't.

If there's one thing that reassures me that I have matured, it's that I don't fear judgement over who I am and what I am about any more. When I was younger and I said I didn't care what people think about me, that was an affectation, a desperate attempt to seem confident. But when I say it today, it's the truth. I really couldn't give a fuck, because I am doing what makes me happy, I have my shit together, I have a healthy internal source of self esteem instead of seeking validation from others; and ultimately, what else is there to life?

That "healthy internal source of self esteem" thing is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, because I have noticed it really sets some people off when you suggest that being at peace with yourself comes from within, and not from external validation. Some people really, really desperately want that not to be true, and they spitefully despise anyone who shows or tries to tell them otherwise.