Words by JJ Croucher
Design by Yosef Phelan

My friends and I are on the cusp of thirty and everything seems to be falling apart. 

For the heterosexuals, life as promised feels painfully out of reach. A friend of mine thought she would be having children in two years’ time, but she is on the cusp of losing her job and her boyfriend can’t afford the rent for their flat alone. During COVID, we’d go for long walks where we’d paint delusional, romanticised versions of our thirties – we were both semi famous, of course, and hopping between gala brunch and gala dinner, our children somewhere in the background, cared for by a coterie of staff. 

Now, she yo-yos between telling herself that she does not actually want children after all, even in the normal, run-of-the-mill way – she will stay in fashion and try to live out an equally implausible Samantha Jones fantasy – and promising that she will move to Australia, where the sun, the sea and the distance will wash away the ills of late-stage neoliberalism. Her journey between the two poles involves intermittent panic attacks and fits of tears in the work toilets. 

My friend tells me of an apathy that is spreading across her office – no one seems to want to work any more, but in the very realest sense. They’re not lazy or entitled, they just don’t see the point. Work doesn’t promise to lift them out of whatever personal economic funk they are in – why work hard for seemingly little reward?