Remember that elated feeling you got when you first strutted through the line of a crowded club and straight inside because you were on the door list? Whether you were 18 or 23 and whether you’re a modest soul or a drama-prone diva. You still got that nonchalant sense of elation, cued Kanye West’s Flashing Lights to play in your head and felt like you were in a scene from The Hills for at least five minutes. Until at least you got a drink spilt on you and realized there was no Justin Bobby waiting on a motorcycle to drive you home at the end of the night.

Yet somehow life turns and you’re suddenly 28 and realize twice in one month you’ve spent your weekend sampling new beds and hearing all about the various mattress types with your Abbotsford gal pal. She says her partner sleeps quite badly and suddenly the shop assistant assumes you guys are setting up a house, passes you a pillow and urges you to get on and try it out. Flash forward to a post Sunday brunch session where you’ve been up since 5.30am because you chose to go for a run along the Abbotsford trail, have already been to Bourke Street to beat the crowds at David Jones so you can secure some new sunnies and suddenly it’s time to shop for bedding and browse for rustic furniture with said gal pal Elle. You explore various homeware stores along Bridge Road, give your opinion on sheets, decide to sample a few vacuums along the way. Then debate about what will be postal sturdy in the kid’s section of one store and still relevant to who your nephews are now… You then spot the perfect retro knitted hot water bottle cover, find your dream couch and envisage setting up your perfect space as an independent singleton. Before asking yourself how the fuck did I get here?

The visit to IKEA then surfaces, you’ve been here a few times before, but it’s one of those destinations that you usually choose to take as early as humanly possible, post a quiet night in and a 6am morning run. Mainly to avoid the kids, first wives club, gay guys that use IKEA like a revolving grinder screen and the most dreaded sight of all the gay-dream-couples, who make you feel even more incompetent for being surly and single. You enter the doors sometime after 2pm and are immediately ready to drop kick some housewives out of your path, you ask yourself why don’t they just hire an ex-real-estate agent to give tours of each room, it would reduce the foot traffic like tenfold? Then you decide to make things fun and try and play house 500 days of summer styles. Yet everyone is in your playrooms and the only quiet place you both find is a shower that sadly opens directly to the basin of a toilet. This house will not do. You find a kitsch office setup, but then a McDreamy hipster breaks your A Single Man fantasy by walking in front pack clad, bearded, well groomed and affectionately looking into his child’s eyes. Your head says divorce your wife now and fuck me in the nearest bathroom cubicle. But your legs are motioning a silent scream of, get me the fuck out of here. You can’t find what you wanted anyway and your gal pal’s boyfriend is on his way, he arrives and you exit immediately. A pint of beer sounds really tempting but you know you’re on a detox. So a cucumber, apple and ginger revitalizer with like 8 of those energy shots additives and well-being thangs is your only option.

On your walk home, you think to yourself where was I two years ago on a Sunday like this? You remember that you were probably still on your friend’s couch hungover, pigging out on takeaways or indulging in your first thirst of the dog cocktail post a hard night out. You may have even been cosy in bed watching one of your favourite Sunday hungover guilty pleasures, One Tree Hill or Gossip Girl. Then you remember those other Sundays when you were still naked and sprawled across some professionals minimalist apartment with his warm body still against yours, listening to some album that you know he only bought because he read about it in last Thursday’s TimeOut. But then you ask yourself, while it was fun and while it may seem strange that I am now on the verge of being a thirty-something single who is surrounded by nesters Facebook status updates.  Is the prospect of more weekends like this, where conversation doesn’t need alcohol, where fitness and wellbeing are embraced, really that terrifying?

Shit, it’s already nearly 5pm, you just got lost in your head for like twenty minutes while watching families in the park and dreaming of nicotine, even though you know you can’t have it. You make a quick detour to Thomas Dux your local organic grocer, question why Kale is so hard to find, I mean it’s the superfood of the moment shouldn’t it have some neon recycled sign guiding every hipster to it? You’ve got dinner at Kayla and Dev’s again. It’s actually become quite a Sunday ritual. Kayla makes the salad and entertains and Dev cooks indulgent Pork Bellies, Lambs and Chickens. You realise this month you’ve been there more Sunday’s than you’ve been at your place. But that lately you’ve enjoyed these Sunday roasts much more than your brutal nights crawling the streets in a drunken stupor. Desert, desert… Dev is lactose intolerant can he have yoghurt? The cakes look divine but do they support your detox? You find a banana, passionfruit and lemon cake, some organic raspberry yoghurt and a 2-litre of apple, mango and orange freshly pressed juice, after all even if your hosts are having a glass of vino, you are on a detox so must avoid alcohol at all costs tonight! 

You arrive home post another decadently delicious meal in the company of two of your dearest friends. To open your email inbox and find your first Big Brother, Big Sisters of Melbourne meeting has been rescheduled. The interview is a new commitment that you’ve decided to make to cure the absence of your nephews in your life since moving abroad. But also something that you feel compelled to do to offer youth who didn’t have the supportive upbringing that you were blessed with, as an adolescent. Once again you pause for a moment and ask, “How the fuck did I become this guy who wants to give instead of indulging?”

While it may seem terrifying to farewell that old you. The one who would rock up to a bustling club line see Shaun your favourite fierce door bitch, have a cackle with him, mock some of the crowd, slap his ass before he bit your nipple and then strut up the stairs of that venue that would become all tomorrows parties, with your two favourite Go Girls interlinked to your arms. The prospect of more weekends spent feeling healthy, locked away in your den creating, having open dialogues with those you love who are also in a stage of their life where they are saying goodbye to the venue transition footers of this The Hills esque twenty-something lifestyle that we’ve embraced with every heartbeat. Doesn’t really seem that daunting and honestly, I actually think I’d prefer to stroll down the road and meet my flock for brunch than do the walk of shame every second Sunday. 

I guess it’s true what they say, at some point in our lives every Serena Van Der Woodsen becomes a Dan Humphrey dweller. 

Written by Samuel Elliot Snowden