Allora Dannon didn’t notice when her younger siblings started dating before she did, and she was mostly focused on her academics when her college classmates were rotating through hookups. But, sometime in her mid-20s, she looked up and realized her little sisters were getting married and having kids and she hadn’t even been on a first date.
“My youngest sister — there’s a 16-year age gap between us — she had her first kiss and went through two boyfriends before I even went on a first date,” Dannon, now 35, tells Vox. “I’m really good at celebrating other people. I love sharing other people’s joy. However, I internalized so much, like there just must be something grotesquely wrong about me.”
Dannon had traveled the world and enjoyed a rich social life, and she couldn’t entirely understand why, for some people — most people, it seemed — getting into a relationship was so easy, but not for her.
Dannon is, by all accounts, a late bloomer: someone who hits milestones, like love, homeownership, established career, and parenthood, on a longer timeline than their peers. It’s not so much the shame that often comes with being a late bloomer that makes it hard — though there’s plenty of that, Dannon says; it’s the creeping resentment, and frustration as you watch the people you care about move onto new life stages while you stay in the same place. It’s the feeling that, after years of attending others’ bridal showers and bachelorette parties and housewarmings and weddings and baby showers and kid birthday parties, it might never be your turn.
