6 signs you’re suffering from a quarter-life crisis

Between the ages of 23 and 30 and identify with one or more of the points below? Yeah, you’re a quarter-lifer.1. You’ve run out of moneyYou’re 26 years old and dammit, your tastes have evolved. Suddenly, the happy hour in Wetherspoons no longer seems sophisticated and you’ve started to frequent bars where you can choose what kind of whisky to have in your Old Fashioned. It doesn’t really seem acceptable to invite friends round for dinner and serve them pasta from the giant bag of Sainsbury’s Basics penne you have in the cupboard and your work wardrobe now has to come from Zara, not Primark.Essentially, you’re still earning near-enough a starting salary but have started to spend like you’re on a lot more.2. Babies are confusingThe young of your species used to be straightforward: they were gross. Vomity, screamy, expensive balls of dribble. But now, your feelings towards babies have become seriously conflicted. And whilst the first thing you think of when you see babies now is still ‘NOT YET’, you’ve begun to feel a little stirring somewhere below your belly button when you see the offspring of friends and family gurgling away in their prams.You’ve come to realise that actually, babies are just slightly less hairy, slightly more terrifying puppies. And you sort of want one…3. You’ve become nostalgicMany a night has been wasted by the quarter-lifer searching for YouTube clips of Sabrina The Teenage Witch and The Demon Headmaster. A sure sign of a mid-twenties crisis is suddenly becoming incredibly nostalgic for your childhood, covered in roll-on body glitter as it was. You get bonus points on this one if you’ve said the phrase ‘TV/music/everything was so much better when we were young!’ in the past fortnight.4. You’ve outgrown your other halfIt only seems like yesterday that you and your significant other were frolicking through life arm-in-arm without a care in the world. You only had eyes for each other and a break-up was unimaginable. But now you’ve hit your mid-twenties and you’re starting to doubt the relationship has any legs. Your friends are dating all sorts of exciting people and you’re starting to wonder if there are better people out there for you, specifically that person who licks their lips at you on the bus to work.The sad truth has dawned on you: you wouldn’t look twice at your partner in a bar now and it was probably only because you were permanently drunk as a student that you were attracted to them in the first place.5. Work is a dragThe novelty of joining the real world has worn off and your job (if you’re lucky enough to have one) is no longer that exciting. Where a few years ago everything you did in the office seemed new and worthwhile, you’re just not that flattered anymore when your boss tells you they’ve got a big responsibility for you to take on and it turns out to be replacing the ink cartridge in the printer.6. You’re stuck in a commitment no man’s landOne minute you’re embracing the desire you feel to grow up, settle down and get a stable job/partner/life and the next, you’re shouting at your mother down the phone: ‘I’m 28 years old! I don’t have to make these decisions for YEARS! I don’t need to settle down – in fact, I might go and live abroad for a while!’When you’re not forlornly googling B*witched videos, you’re using the internet to look for houses in your area that you’re pretty sure you will never afford. You fantasise about owning your own property and you’ve already picked out the colour you’d paint the living room, such is the intensity of your instinct to begin nesting. But when your housemates ask if you can chip in for a new kettle, you’re reluctant to commit. You could be living abroad by the time that kettle arrives, for all you know…(metro.co.uk)ANN.Az