Thirty – the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age….So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7. Nick is struck with loneliness as it dawns on him that it’s his 30th birthday. He fears the new decade will bring him isolation and he is also aware of his own mortality. Jordan comforts him. Unlike Daisy and Gatsby who look back to the past, he and Jordan look to the future.