My age says I’m an adult but sometimes I think other people know more about being an adult than me.
Well I mean, we’re all just mostly LARPing this whole adult thing, right?
I’m in my 50s and actually still LARPing, and playing TTRPGs, and MMORPGs. No need to grow up for anyone else’s sake as long as you’re not harming others.
When I was little, I thought I would grow out of playing video games, as in I have a very specific memory of sitting in my 1st grade math class and just making that observation to myself. I was a 90s kid surrounded by baby boomer adults who largely were not gamers, so I just assumed one day I’d grow out of it.
On the positive side, I learned that you don’t have to give up your imagination when you grow up. I came up with elaborate make-believe worlds as kids are wont to do, and merely started adding lore and continuity and documentation when I got older. You don’t need to be writing a sci-fi novel or DMing a homebrew D&D campaign to do it, either. I worldbuild for the mere joy of pretending, or to dignify it with Tolkien’s words sub-creation.
I’ve been GMing “Tales from the Loop” lately and having an absolute blast with it! Everyone in the group is 40s-50s, but totally gets into it. Never stop “playing,” whatever that means to you.
Lightning bolt, lightning bolt!
I’m out of mana!
No. I’m not.
but i like and enjoy my life. i don’t regard it as a burden to escape from.
Neither am I, I just think I shouldn’t be allowed to but a house or rent a car or use a chainsaw or raise a child unsupervised. That’s something grown-ups do, not me (40yo).
that sounds like a massive lack of self-confidence.
none of those things are difficult. most people do them on auto pilot. you are thinking way too much.
you also falsely assume there is a ‘correct’ way to do these things and you will do it ‘wrong’. there isn’t.
i used to teach. biggest thing most people have to get over is their pre conception of a ‘right’ way to do things. there is only really what works for you, it only doesn’t work if you aren’t able to attain your goals.
like i meet people who think the only ‘correct’ way to have a child to make sure that child gets into Harvard… otherwise their child will be a failure at life. those people are idiots. the kid will be perfectly fine going to a state school, and maybe even not going to college at all…
Yeah but there’s also a massive subset of people making horrible children because they shouldn’t be parents in the first place. Its unfortunate but it happens.
according to who, you?
the thing about other people’s actions is you don’t get to police them. plenty of people probably think your actions are horrible, stupid, and wrong.
According to me, for one. You seem to not understand your own privilege, or you’d be aware of the countless unwanted, unloved children born to parents who do not give a fuck that the world then exploits relentlessly until they manage to remove themselves from the abuse cycle or are dead. The foster system is full of them, and so are the prisons. Ever heard of the school to prison pipeline? It’s a thing, and while many of those parents are simply disadvantaged but otherwise loving, many others are worse. Far worse, apparently, than you can acknowledge.
So according to me, a person with skin in this particular game, if a parent is unable or unwilling to see potential offspring as vulnerable little humans in need of protection, nurture, and provision until such time as they can manage on their own, they should not be parenting. And honestly, if a parent or would-be parent sees children as means to an end, things to use or worse, to sell, then “judging” them is quite frankly the least bad thing that should happen to them.
I’m glad you enjoy your life. But your kind of life is not the only life being lived. You are privileged beyond your own awareness.
You said it better than me.
Apparently Tubular has not seen the massive amount of horrible parents and by result, children.
Not judging anyone, people can do what they want. But a lot of people do not step back to take in the gravity of the situation when discussing bringing new humans into this world.
so what do you propose, sterilizing people who dont pass your litmus test?
frankly, i’ve had people scream at me my parents should have never had be because my parents were not rich and could not buy me nice things and pay for my college and graduate degrees for me. i had to pay for them myself. where i live people think that is child abuse and horrible and wrong. should we require that only people with massive wealth be able to have kids then?
wow yeah, what a loser i am. i should have been lucky enough to have parents that beat the shit out of me who were also poor. i’d be such a better person!
my point is your argument is stupid and draconian, and ultimately unenforcable. it’s merely a product of your own self-righteousness and need to control how others live their lives. if i had kids i’d force them to get jobs, just like i did. in your world that would be abusive parenting, probably. and i’d judge the shit out of them if they refused to work or were losers who didn’t contribute positively to society.
Our parents were faking knowing what they were doing, just like we are.
Yup, everyone in the world is just winging it. Everyone.
Adults are just large children. Accept this and move on. You will never understand anything, really. Those that seem to are just pretending.
There’s a reason terms like “man child” exist. And sayings like “boys never grow up”. 😂
“When do I start feeling like an adult?”
That’s the neat part! You don’t!
what does adult mean anyway?
like the traditional markers of adulthood as in home ownership, family, etc. ?
or just a self of responsibility?
If we strip the externally-imposed milestones and accomplishment domarisons, we’re left with basic stuff like the skills required to cope in a society with other individuals, make decisions and be responsible for those decisions, and manage (not achieve, but manage) basic needs.
It’s bullshit, but that’s close, right?
when I ask myself whether others - or me too - are achieving these intrinsic requirements, I’m not often impressed. But that’s a target to work toward, anyway.
I’m in my 40s and I still don’t get it. I keep asking myself when my life as an independent adult who has my own place to live and access to decent transportation will begin.
why don’t you have those things?
i’ve had those things since i was 18.
- I have a disability that prevents me from driving and makes it difficult to find employment without strong inside connections or outside of a few very specific niches.
- I live in a very large, pedestrian-hostile city.
- While my grandfather, who lacked a college education, could afford to buy a house and feed a stay-at-home wife and 8 children, I, who have no dependents and have two college degrees, cannot afford an apartment in a location that fits my needs.
sure. any city that would be friendly do you would be ultra expensive. i have a two bed condo that would get me mansion in some other cities. but i would never give up the walkability and public transit.
not sure what your grandfather has to do with it, but OK. COL will only continue to skyrocket the next couple of decades.
not sure what your grandfather has to do with it, but OK. COL will only continue to skyrocket the next couple of decades.
The cost of living is exactly why I brought up my grandfather.
We (millennials and younger) were sold a bill of goods by our baby boomer parents.
“Go to college,” they said, “and you’ll get a good job that will put a roof over your head and food on the table.” We looked at them, with their bachelor’s degrees and owned houses and car-filled garages and hope for the future, and we believed them because everything we experienced during the halcyon days of the 90s reinforced that idea. But just as we were getting ready to graduate, the great recession hit, pulling the rug out from under us.
Do I blame them? No. They said that because it worked for them and they honestly thought it would work for us. But that doesn’t make me feel any less bitter.
ladies and gentlemen… “The problem”
i strongly believe we have deluded ourselves as a society to associate natural human feelings with youth when they are simply how humans perceive and feel regardless of age. every single older person i ask if they feel their age says no. they all tell me they feel like they’re in their 20s at the oldest, some still teenagers. your body ages, you get wiser due to life experiences, but you don’t “become an adult” ever, because what we consider adulthood is a Western lie built upon capitalist standards and strict American individualism (if you’re in the US).
i don’t feel 36. i don’t know what that would even entail. i feel “younger,” but i don’t see it that way. i feel like a human being connected to his actual existence and acknowledging it rather than allowing it to be repressed because i’m too old for x y z. we are all young-minded permanently. that’s just how humans are. it isn’t reserved for the physically young.
I used to genuinely worry as an 8 year old that I’d get older and just lose all sense of fun and silliness.
Turns out in my early 40s I’m just that very same 8 year old but I know a few more things and like boobs more than I used to.
I’ve always felt like a kid and told myself I wouldn’t grow up.
Still the same. I think having a somewhat traumatized childhood also makes you want to live as a child freely again.
Also not having kids helps. I can do anything I want and make my own schedule.
I never understood boring old people. Ill be doing projects and having adventures until im 80.
most people don’t want or need projects and adventures. they want to relax and do nothing in their spare time.
And this is why i argue we cant have UBI, or most people wont do jack shit and the utilities will get shut down 😅
I have times where I want to be lazy. But it doesn’t last long and then im on to the next thing. And I consider myself low energy compared to the shit I see my friends getting done!
Many of the traits of childhood are wonderful and you should cling to them. Sense of wonder and curiosity, goofiness, don’t take yourself too seriousky, adventure, physicality, etc.
I think I get what you’re saying, that sometimes one wonders if relative to some of your peers of you’re “achieving” enough. That’s a trickier question because some introspection from this is good.
- Are you truly content?
- Is your future somewhat secured? (forward-thinking with finances, career, health). Or are you doing the more reckless Yolo teenage thing? (this aspect of being a child, especially if one has kids, I’d say isn’t good lol).
What if you’re just staggering through because life won’t stop shitting on your family? Every time we get above water something else catastrophic happens. Couldn’t even get our kitchen and bathrooms fixed from water damage with the paltry insurance payment we got and then the basement ceiling and imsulation got soaked from external water. No way can we report that to insuramce because they will drop us and we’ll be fucked into a higher rate. Don’t use State Farm. Cunts.
Oh yeah, and the floors we paid to have redone 3 years ago? Already buckling and peeling. Warranty replacement has been in process for over a month now but at least there’s a glimmer of hope we’ll get something from it.
I’ve started making claim email chains with the state ombudsman cc’d in the first email. Saves so much time.
Being an adult in the sense of being responsible, feel pretty good about. Pay the bills. Feed myself. Go to work.
Being an adult in the sense of having no fun, or tightly restricted fun, not so much. Still go see live music and play video games.
When I turned 18 and my grandmother was in her 80s, she told me, “I still feel exactly like I did when I was your age.”
I asked if that meant she was frustrated by how slowly she moved (she used a rollator by that point), and she confirmed it did.
You’ll never really feel like an adult, but your body will keep on aging anyway. And you’ll never really get used to that, either.
I’m almost 30 and just starting to feel like a kid.
I’ve had to be an adult since I was 10 but getting sober and having my first kid really brought me back to life. We play with a hotwheels track that we call car thing, we wrestle everyday, we have jam sessions where we switch instruments so for half of it I’m playing a tiny piano. When I buy clothes I let him help me pick stuff out and most of it’s from thrift stores so my outfits have gotten very funky.
He also makes doing adult things more fun, we do everything together so he helps me with house work. There’s the shark vacuum, the carpet cleaner turns the floor into lava, laundry basketball, we cook dinner together. My favorite is making pizza dough with him, it takes longer to clean up than it does to make the pizza but it’s a blast.
I only really feel like an adult when I spend time with kids and young people. Even though the students I teach are at university, and thus technically adults… I’m always struck by how often they seem ‘immature’.
And to be clear, I don’t even really mean that as a criticism. Sure, at times they don’t pay attention and forget to do things and seem akward/nervous. But "adults’ do all those things too. The difference is the adults have generally accepted these flaws and come up with coping strategies (both good and bad) like avoiding those situations, or blaming other people.
So, what makes me feel like an adult is not that I’m on top of things, or that I’m no longer a mess. It’s that I know I’m a mess, and I no longer hope that one day I’ll get everything sorted, and tbh, that’s fine.
No, I still feel like an adult. I just feel like I’m still 24 (I’m 50)
I’m 42, and I feel like I’m cosplaying and LARPing as an adult. I’m able to convince everyone but myself.
Mortage, kids, and a pretty nice career is my equivalent of a fursuit - something to hide behind in an effort to find acceptance from likeminded.
that sounds miserable.
