Kareena tore the eye mask off her forehead and straightened her Taylor Swift concert sleep shirt. She had secured her dream job at a company that developed women-owned businesses in the tristate area before her thirtieth birthday. But of course, one text from a client and her boss energy dissipated like mist. She tossed her phone on the rumpled bedspread and rubbed her hands over her face.

She was thirty and single.

No, no, thirty and successful.

Thirty and financially independent.

Thirty and ... still lived with her dad and grandmother.

And single. Very, very single.

Without even a maintenance man to grease the plumbing.

If she had a time machine, she would’ve gone back to her last relationship in law school and said: Sweetie, giving up dating until you achieve your career goals may not be the best idea. Especially if you’re searching for a happily ever after with a man. It becomes way too easy to be alone.

Kareena felt like her family, her aunties—hell, the entire New Jersey South Asian population—had been preparing her for being thirty and single, but did she listen? Nope. More importantly, did she really have to be reminded first thing in the morning?

Like T-Swizz said. Damn. It was only seven a.m.

“I should’ve taken today off,” she mumbled as she crawled out of bed and walked toward the adjoining bathroom.

Even as she showered and mentally reviewed her schedule for the day, the misogynist adages she’d heard whispered at cultural gatherings echoed through her head.

If you’re single at thirty, you have to lower your standards. If you’re single at thirty, your prospects for a happily ever after are diminished.If you’re single at thirty, you are perceived as difficult, and no one will want to marry you.

Her father had never made her feel that way growing up since he had a love marriage versus arranged marriage himself. But now that her younger sister was engaged, it was like ghosts of ancestors past had taken over his body, and he had suddenly become a traditionalist.