Why do people get surprised if you're a certain age and...

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haven't done something by that point ?

I seem to think we are supposed to live in a world now where it shouldn't really matter how old someone has to be to do something or not do something. Examples of this include, in an old episode of the UK's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Chris Tarrant had a 27 year old student on as his first guest and responded ''You're 27 and you're still a student ?''. Another was when I overheard my nan talking to someone at a family gathering and was talking about a cousin of mine who was 35 at the time and said ''He's 35 now and he still isn't married.''

Societal expectations regarding required milestones in your life, and when you should achieve them. Nothing more, nothing less.

There aren't so many of them now, I think. Or they're not as strong. For instance, I don't think it was a coincidence that it was your Nan (i.e. someone of an older generation) who expressed her expectations like that.

I guess it is harder for us NDs as we do tend to reach these milestones later than NTs do (if we do at all). But thankfully, as I said, there's less societal expectation than there used to be in the past.

We NDs forge our own paths. On the flip side, for example, I've heard of people getting together as a couple before they were really ready (because of said expectations, etc). Societal expectations can be toxic for that reason.

Society is so full of itself that people expect everybody to do things exactly as expected.