I recently broke up with my boyfriend. Though extremely painful, I knew it was the correct decision - but I also wondered in my lower moments if, at 31, I was “too old” to start over again. I’ve never looked or felt better, but there’s cultural shame surrounding not having a partner after a certain age. A massive amount of power and freedom of choice comes with being single, and many solo people in their 30s and 40s are NOT miserable. We just don’t hear about it. Let’s change that.

This week’s anonymous confessors are straight, gay, bi, and gender nonconforming men and women residing in New York, LA, London, New Zealand, & Paris. They’re between the ages of 31 and 54 and either are currently single, or found their partner “later in life.” On the coupled side, we hear from two women who met their husbands in their 40s after 20+ years (!) of being unpartnered, and a 39 year old former party princess who met her husband on Raya at 36. 

On the single side, both halves of a straight couple that broke up after nearly a decade together dish on the novelty of riding solo for the first time at 30; a queer man explains why straight people need to stop obsessing over monogamy; an American in Europe enjoys her freedom to take road trips with hot strangers she meets at parties; a non-binary contributor in their 40s feels this is the first time they can be their authentic self on dating apps; and a 35 year old escort wonders if earning her own “fuck you” money has made her too comfortable with independence.

Our contributors all acknowledge that a ‘single person bias’ is built into Western society: life is marketed to seem ‘impossible’ to navigate alone. But the sense of self-worth, knowledge of personal boundaries, sex, money, and total freedom that come from being single “later in life” prove that’s not actually true. 

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Tales of Taboo is produced and narrated by Ali Weiss. Share your own confession - or love letters and hate mail - at [email protected]. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Audio production by Chris Stathopolous and WTF Media. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro. If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating and review - it's immensely helpful for expanding our network of anonymous confessors around the world. Thank you!