MSN Mondays: 30 reasons it's okay to be single at 30

1. Wait, you're still single? Panic! But seriously, it's okay according to MSN. But honestly, call your mother, maybe she knows someone. Have you heard of J date?

2. Online dating. Everyone now knows that online dating is a totally legitimate way to meet someone and have a lasting relationship, a torrid evening, or fulfill our need for validation. But it wasn't always this way. Up until a few years ago everyone was still saying crazy shi- like, "Isn't it better to meet in person? Back in my day," and other things that have nothing to do with how amazing online dating has proved to be for the world at large. I've seen commercials. Anyhow, if you got married when you were 23 you missed out on this craze because you were too young for it to become normalized. Be thankful that you're thirty and single.

3. Pets-You know who doesn't like pets? Lots of people. You know who you don't have to ask if you one day walk by the pound and spot the perfect kitten or a one-legged dog in an alley, your significant other. Congratulations, you now have a pet chinchilla that you just know your significant other was going to accuse of spreading disease because that's just how they are.

4. You don't have to split your Netflix queue up into different profiles. You don't have time in your life to pick between two profiles when you open up Netflix. You want it to take you straight back to the next episode of Call of the Midwife not have the effrontery of someone else having a profile where they watch French foreign films with quirky Midwestern leads.

5. Thirty is the new 20. I have no idea what this means. Is this some kind of comment on longevity and life extension? I'm pretty sure The Atlantic has written a lot of article about this talking about the economic downturn, outsourcing of labor and knowledge based economy, but I understand it to mean that 30 year old's can no longer get into bars or buy booze, which is terrible. This is why you can't let a government do anything.

6. You have time to write fan fiction, or your novel, or a blog post, or tweet frequently. People who aren't single when they are 30 are struggling to keep up in this fast-paced technologically advanced society. They are like, what's Instagram again? Please, you just posted a picture of your dinner and you and your dog on a walk at sunset. What is Instagram? It's you looking good and keeping up!

7. You're giving people a chance to build up some wealth. It takes a while to find your way in the job market, stop wasting precious time writing blog posts, and move up the corporate ladder. If you've waited until thirty and still aren't married. Awesome! You're getting someone who is contributing the full 5 percent into their matching 401K, and you know how good this news is. A few years from now you'll be sending out pictures of you and this other old person who has not wasted time with relationships from Hawaii.

8. Moving-If you're still single when you're thirty you can say something like, "This city doesn't suit me" and move off to Brooklyn or Barcelona or something. You don't have a significant other in your ear reminding you that you don't speak Spanish and that the hipsters already spoiled Brooklyn, and you don't want to be late to that game, and while you're up it seems like the trash could probably be taken out.

9. This list isn't helping. It's making me realize that thirty really is quite a long list and probably age. I'd have an easier time spoofing them if it was fourteen reasons it's okay to be single at fourteen. (Hint: it's not. Everyone is dating at 14 except you).

10. Vacations-Admittedly, similar to moving. You can take them. You can be like, huh, I've always wondered what Kansas would like in September, and you don't have to ask anyone if they also want to go to Kansas, you can just do that and have that experience.

11. You can take up an instrument and play for hours. You're not going to have that time if you were in a relationship. Your mother always knew you'd be good at violin, and now you have the chance to prove her right.

12. You can build the entire world down to its minutest detail in Minecraft. No one is going to ask you to stop playing and have a conversation or remember that you have a job. If you were 23 you'd probably spend all this time recreating bars or women you used to love who are now very blocky. No, you're thirty and you're single, and you can't wait to spend 48 hours trying to mine for enough iron to build a skyscraper just like that one you saw on Google Earth in Beijing.

13. You've made it through your twenties single and avoided a whole minefield of bad choices. Remember that guy who you dated for two years who didn't have any discernible job and also hated people? Remember that girl who was hooked on prescription drugs and occasionally stole from you? Of course you do, at some point you were considering whether they were marriage material. Congratulations, you made it!

14. You've put off being in a relationship so long that the annoying question of when you have kids will be severely truncated. Plus, you still have plenty of time to have kids if you want and more people are having kids later anyway and it's cool to be those old parents who spend all afternoon drinking wine and working in the yard when everyone else's dad and  mom are still slogging away.

15. Because if you suddenly just switch to liking rose instead of a good red wine no one will be around to tell you that rose is for plebians. I can't overstate how important this is.

16. You can meet someone at any point in time. I mean, you probably won't because weird, stop talking to people on the metro and the elevator let's all just pretend that we can't see each other and end this social interaction as quickly as possible, but yeah, it could happen.

17. You get to sleep in on the weekends if you want. You don't have some partner up making a nice breakfast and making you feel guilty for getting up at nine, or trying to coax you into a hike, or worse, children who always get up at 6:30 in the morning regardless of the fact that it's the weekend. It's the weekend kids, come on! How soon until they start closing down bars?

18. You can set up your Spotify playlist just as you like it, without any intrusions of Raffi or that one album by Bush from the 1990's. I just want to hear hours of Tori Amos. It's okay. You're thirty and single. You get too.

19. If you decide to watch every season of The Wire over the course of seven days you don't have to feel guilty that it's so gritty and try and find some middle ground show. You can emerge after those two weeks feeling like you know Baltimore, and by know Baltimore, I mean avoid it.

20. You won't have a one year old actively pouring the last vestiges of Sprite all over your couch. Why does that seem like a good idea? (Sorry actual reality intruding into fiction).

21. You can become an expert in yoga and be both content with your spirit, learning to let things wash over and past you like a boulder in a stream and rock a body that makes you feel like thirty is the new 20.

22. You have enough time to get through that list of the top 100 novels of all time that The Guardian put out a few years back. I know you want to be an intellectual superstar. You can.

23. You can honestly check the weather. I mean, people who aren't single do this all the time, but you can become a real weather checker, someone who knows the European forecast model and is loling at statuses on Capital Weather Gang and maybe getting together with them for drinks because you can, you're single at thirty. You checked the weather? Please, look at this new satellite photo that just came out from Canada.

24. You don't have anyone to check out your outfit to tell you that it's not a good fit or that you probably need to wear an undershirt with that vest. You can just let it all go.

25. You can name your dog whatever you want. If you want to name him Fido or Butch or runs after rabbits until his tongue falls off and then we have to take him to the vet because ew. It's your prerogative.

26. You can become an expert bowler and invest in your own bowling ball with a rose in the middle and spend a lot of your free time learning how to spin it properly. And when things get hard in your life and people are complaining about relationships or jobs or whatever, you can just say, "I'll be bowling" and no one will be there to stop you but you.

27. You can follow your dreams of selling hot dogs from one of those carts on the National Mall and just spend time shooting the breeze with people while you provide them low quality meat and have the time of your life.

28. 30 isn't even that old anymore. Life expectancy is creeping up towards eighty yo, and I've heard that old folks home are a great place to meet people. I'm just saying you've got time.

29. You've had time to pursue your career or your education and can continue to pursue your career or education or love of weaving without worrying about whether you'll be able to get a good loom in Anchorage, Alaska.

30. I suppose the best reason that it's okay to be single at 30 is that it's okay to be single at any age. I'm not advocating an anarchist view of coupling, I'm just saying that things are complicated. Easy though it may seem is there still anything as strange in the world as how we feel or don't feel about another person, which is intertwined with how they feel or don't feel about us? Anyhow, tonight is for feeling peaceful. Pull back the covers on your bed and slide into the cold, smooth sheets. No one is downstairs watching television. No one is waiting for you to call. The morning light is all that awaits you. Go to sleep, my love.