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i'm rooting for you. your resilience & awareness are inspirational, truly. i met my wife in my mid-20s, and my younger brother is now around your age (a bit older) and still looking. so is one of my best friends from high school (who is closer to 30). all this to say, it seems to me that people seem to generally be taking longer than in the past to do things like get married, have kids, settle down (assuming they want to). maybe it's because everything has gotten more expensive, or because people live longer, or because covid tossed a wrench in the social system for a while that i'm not sure we've fully recovered from, or even because the Internet has made everyone prone to holding out for "the right one" and ignoring those around them (since it's easy to find someone that ticks all the boxes in the vast expanse of online, but this isn't realistic, of course). so, in my own opinion, you have time! it'll be worth the wait :-)
You know, in a funny sense, I cant help but feel the same way, that it's taking longer today than in the past to get married, have kids, and settle down.
I believe it's because of adult negligence. Coming from experience, spending my middle and high school days in special education was often more than not seclusive, and barred me from experiencing the real world, as well as denied me the same liberties as my peers, mainly because of my Autism. Being pigeonholed is no fun, especially when you're surrounded by kids who are more disabled than you, and yet the teachers, who are specifically paid to teach you how to interact with others, just expect you to know how to do everything in spite of your attempts to ask them for help. It's maddening.
So, I guess you could say I am mentally underdeveloped thanks to special ed.
I think another reason why it's taking longer is because children and teens are becoming more unhinged and undisciplined, as you can probably imagine what my life in 10th grade was like; Vietnam. You could say it's just another case of bullying, but trust me, these levels of bullying are borderline murder.
So...I would imagine that many are not "peaking in high school" because of adult negligence.
To this I say, "We are Generation Zero. We are the children who grew up neglected by society. But we cannot give up on ourselves just because everyone else gave up on us. We must set an example for Generation Alpha if our species is to survive."
You know what I really wanted as a teenager? Magic. The feeling of being a "Teenager in Love" like those songs in the 50's from Dion, or those John Hughes movies like Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club.
But I can't help but feel like I wasn't allowed to experience this magic for myself, simply because everyone else wanted to control me because I have Autism.