Anecdotally, as a millennial with a full-time non-SV software job, I socialize with entirely different cohorts of millennials who experience vastly different li

Anecdotally, as a millennial with a full-time non-SV software job, I socialize with entirely different cohorts of millennials who experience vastly different lives. Some of my peer group has attained professional success early on by landing well-paying jobs early. These are the people I notice marrying in their mid-20s, forming two-income families, transitioning from apartment living to buying houses, taking several family vacations, and pondering (or dismissing) the idea of having children. These young families orient their social lives towards themselves or work-related functions. I guess this is the life previous generations expect us to have. Some other friends of mine have dropped out of college and are under-employed, working retail or foodservice. At these incomes, living alone is financially impossible, so friends band together in groups of three or four to share a rental. Social bonds are tight-knit but spread out to a core group of around a dozen, in which there's an overarching feel of solidarity and shared circumstance. Several people in the group have dated each other in the past, and have since broken up amicably; volatile breakups usually result in one of the parties ostracized. In this group, long-term romantic bonds do develop, but marriage is seldom taken as an option. I know multiple groups of such friends in entirely different cities, between which I'm the single common link. These two lifestyles couldn't be further apart; whenever I read about generalizations applied to millennials I am conflicted because it's unclear which group they refer to; in many cases, the other group is almost entirely exempt.