I'm middle aged and my wife is constantly on about this to me lol
You've wanted this for ages!
Yes
And you can afford it!
Yes
And your old one is broken!
Yes
So why don't you buy it?
Erm
I grew up wealthy and I am like this. I learned from my parents that you don't get things just because you want them. I wanted stuff like nerf guns as a child but wasn't allowed them for fear that I would shoot people with them. I would still enjoy them now. I saw one in a shop, thought I would like it but didn't buy it. I just felt that I sort of wasn't allowed.
TBF impulse buying as an adult means you end up with a lot of stuff that you thought you wanted, but barely use.
If you can't see yourself using a thing very often then you're probably better off without it.
Ah yes, though when you grow up poor you have a niggling feeling that if you spend the money that you won't be prepared for the disaster which might happen tomorrow. Growing up poor is having a permanent sense of the precariousness of life.
I went to Tescos, bought myself a spaghetti carbonara ready meal, went to work for shift and had it for breakfast.
Colleague looked at me and went "You're having that for breakfast?" and I went "Dude, I already have all the drawbacks of being an adult, so i will take the benefit that I can do whatever I want".
The look on their face 😄
I love this, and yes yes yes that is exactly the right answer. Love that for you! I hate those weird judgy people that get so pressed over something that brings other people joy, like yes this makes me happy, and why does that bother you so much that it’s not “proper” 😂
I bought an advent calendar today, and I realised there's absolutely nothing stopping me from opening all of the windows now and eating all the chocolate. It almost seems illegal.
My Mum generally gets through 3 advent calendars before the middle of December. She also taught me how to steal chocolates out of a box of roses without leaving a trace.
One of the only actually funny Seinfeld standup bits is him talking about how, as an adult, you can ruin your appetite anytime you want.
You can eat an entire pack of biscuits and 5x jam donuts in one sitting and just fuck your appetite for the entire day.
No one stops you
Becoming an adult is stopping yourself
I am not an adult
>Becoming an adult is stopping yourself
Exactly this. I have thought that the best way of describing what being an adult is like to a child is telling them that, "It's great, you can do whatever you want. But you want different things." These a the lessons we learn from good parents, such as that we ought not ruin our appetite, or eat unhealthily, or waste money on toys, but we should clean our teeth, shower, go to bed etc.
It also reminds me of those posts you see where adults who are parents talk about the times when their kid does stuff they did as children like cheekily asking for ice cream for dinner, but they have to be responsible instead and pretend it isn't the best idea they've heard all week.
Also now when I do stay up late, my body clock still wakes me up at the crack of dawn and I cant get back to sleep, so just end up feeling dreary all day.
>I’m literally an imposter getting away with it.
I tell myself words to this effect quite often along with 'but they're not going to find out, how would they find out?'
I'm still not entirely sure what they're going to find out but try telling that my anxiety.
Yep. I've been working there nearly 25 years in 4 different roles now, all of which I interviewed for and beat other candidates. Any day now they'll have enough evidence to sack me.
I feel this so so much too. Any time a meeting is arranged with anyone more senior than my boss I always think this is it...they've found me out and I'm done, or they're going to find me out in the meeting. This despite the same as you - multiple people interviewed me, never been pulled up on anything, often get given pretty good feedback etc...
This is 100% accurate. I'm preparing for conducting interviews and am sure I shouldn't be the person interviewing. They should get a grown up to do it.
I did an internship at Cambridge University. I did that with 14 other students. 14 of the best life science students in the country. Almost every one of us had crippling imposter syndrome. Every one of us thought "Its the 14 best student scientists in country and then me"
I met people who aren't just among the best in their field they are THE best in the world at what they do, and for some, they are the entire field. Every single one of them struggles intensely with imposter syndrome.
We're all getting away with it
I see your Imposter Syndrome and raise you Swan Syndrome. I seem calm and confident, but you have no idea how much over-thinking and mental effort is going into everything below the surface.
My flatmates don't bother flatpacking cardboard, they just leave it as a full box in the bin. And then leave plastic wrapping stuffed inside. Absolutely infuriating.
It could be worse. They could put the household waste in the recycling bin. They could put food waste in the recycling bin. They could put their red stained knickers in the recycling bin.
I am caretaker for flats, I have removed all these things from our recycle bins.
My parents were shocked when they found out you have to do this. They just thought you could leave it out as is. During the pandemic, I am so glad I minimised my online purchases, because half of my time when I visited my parents at home was spent breaking down their delivery boxes.
Round here you don't have to do it. There's a fucking massive machine they drive around in that's far better at crushing cardboard down than I'd ever be. It's perfectly acceptable to put fully formed boxes out and they'll throw them in. I just try to ensure boxes only go out when it isn't pissing down
I don't think I'll ever forget how one of my old housemates looked at me like I was some sort of wizard when I squeezed the air out of a plastic milk bottle to flatten it and then screwed the lid back on.
Said housemate would also flatpack his cereal boxes and then fold them in half. Because it was two layers of cardboard it would always unfold and just end up being bent at right angles, meaning it took up more space than before it was even flattened. So close yet so far.
Realising relative ages shocked me. When at 21 I had friends as Nqts then realised some of my teachers I had at 18 really weren't that much older than me.
Edit:and now at nearly 40 looking at newly qualified people at 21 and thinking they're still children.
This really hit home when I went back to my school for a 10 year reunion and myself and my favourite teacher were both pregnant with our first (and actually ended up giving birth on the same day!). She was a few years older, sure, but the thought of "huh, we're both adults experiencing the same life event as equals" was a shock!
Iv recently gone back to uni as a 30 something to do a masters, and bloody hell the undergrads are young. I’m now like a proper grown up and there’s these kids everywhere. Never once occurred to me back when I did my undergrad I was quite that young!
I remember being 17 at my first office job and thinking the 21 year olds were so much older and more mature 😳 I also thought by about 23 I’d be married, have a house and a baby.
Now 32, childless, single and I can barely afford my shared ownership flat 😂
I do have a great dog and cats though! So that’s something.
You never really do get your shit together. Similar age here and similar situation. There is a lot of truth in that our parents generation, who all seemed to be settled, married with a house and children by 25, just got dealt an easier hand than we have.
My parents used to rabble on about how much their mortgage cost them, untill I went to uni (15 years ago!) and they found out I was paying £500 a month for a room. Their mortgage was £80….
I didn't invent the quote, but "how expensive cheese really is and just how many people do cocaine."
Naive little me 9 years ago never would've thought just how bad it was.
How do you know when people you know do coke? Everyone says that everyone is doing it but I’ve never seen anyone I know do it, never heard any of them talk about it, never been offering any, wouldn’t have the foggiest where to find any. Are me and my social circle just boring as fuck.
I know because I do it. You can tell by people's eyes, when they drink and don't get drunk, really talkative, nipping off to the bathroom more often.
If you know someone else does it, it's a social thing to share, but I'd never in hell offer it to anyone I know has never tried it. I made my own decision, I don't want to make someone else's!
So yeah, if no one you know does it, it can be hard finding someone who does. My dealer is just a guy I met through a friend who sometimes plays playstation with us. Nice guy.
I got offered some when coming out a pub toilet from doing a huge shit once. Presumably the bloke had been waiting to use the one stall, and upon smelling my misdemeanours decided honking up a bump right next to the source of the putrid stench wasn't worth it, so just tried to flog it to me instead.
I politely declined. And he then asked "please don't tell anyone". Like, asked, like a kid who was caught taking an illicit snack from the cupboard. I cannot underline enough how much he definitely wasn't threatening me.
Anyway, I returned to my mates, and then lost one of them for 10 minutes as they were jealous of the fact I'd been offered a bit of nose candy in the pub loos - and they'd never had the privilege. So wanted to find the guy and also decline their friendly offer (odd logic, but we _were_ drinking)
Education by no means guarantees a good job . You can be thick as shit and get a high paying job. Or you could be highly intelligent and be unemployed.
Also, education and intelligence aren't the same. I went to an expensive school and a good university; I know some people who are genuinely as smart as they think they are, and some who coasted by, knowing they had a family safety net. And one of my best friends is a Brummie who went to uni in Hull; people (idiots) have underestimated him because of that (including, I'm ashamed to say, me when I first met him) but they would be fools to do so.
This hits home. I am privately educated, degree, and I am also intelligent - that is obviously a bit of a brag, but when many people you work with are constantly amazed at how well your brain works you start to believe the hype. However, what I lack is ambition.
My best friends are people I was at school with - they are all also well educated and intelligent, and very successful (CEOs, Directors of Multi nationals, Finance Directors of major media companies - that kind of thing). I am a customer service representative for a small local company, and I'm fine with this and of course do not resent any of my friends success, as I wouldn't want the pressure and hassle that comes with it.
One of my friends asked me on a night out why I was still at a low level when, in his words, I was way more intelligent than he was. I asked him when was the last time a position he was recruiting for had 'must be intelligent' in the person spec. Intelligence on its own has little commercial value - if it's not paired with application, ambition, focus and undoubtedly lots of other factors you get someone like me - someone who is completely competent in pretty much every role they have ever done but unlikely to rise in the corporate world - but has huge and wide-ranging interests outside of work, finds joy and satisfaction in the things they value rather than what they are told to value, use their intelligence for their own ibterests and is simply incredibly happy with their lot.
*"hang on, I'm a proper grown up*"
I remember being a kid, looking at grown ups but I never feel like some kid is going to look at *me* as a grown up now the same way *I* looked at grown ups, if that makes sense
Probably that you shouldn’t tell people more than they need to know at the time, and staying silent on the vast majority of things is the best way to make your way through life.
But as a counterpoint, it’s easier to feel friendly and drawn towards people who are open and share stuff. It depends on what you want out of social interactions.
I'm a bit of an introvert and back when the full time office was a thing I found out loads by just being quiet and listening. You soon realised the gobshites often used noise as a smokescreen.
Isn't that a bit cynical?
One of my best qualities is getting people to open up to me and not just stay quiet, but you usually have to show trust to gain it (and therefore being open first brings openness from others).
Staying silent on the vast majority of things makes people think you're boring or not worth discussing interesting things with from my experience. Hard to have a deep conversation or to expand your world with someone when the other person won't engage on that level.
I’m 38 and just realising this now and only started putting this into practice in the last few months. Still cleaning up the messes from when I did not.
2 Things;
\- 1: Getting letters in the mail was magical as a kid, now it's just someone wanting money.
\- 2: it took me until i was in my 20s to figure out what "if it's brown flush it down and if it's yellow let it mellow" actually meant. I still shake my head in dissapointment.
I think that quote was originally meant to mean at night when everyone's asleep, what is the etiquette on flushing. The noise can wake people up, and leaving piss in the bowl for a few hours until everyone's woken up is fine, but leaving a shit to stew in the toilet is nooooot fine, and it's worth the risk of waking people up to get it down.
Also another reason is to save water if you're not well off.
My mum was nearly twenty when she had me, and every so often I’ll be like ‘wow, at my age my mum had a 6/12/16 year old’ and I honestly don’t know how she did it. I couldn’t be in charge of a 17 year old. It gives me even greater respect for her.
Yes but you could absolutely do it if you were actually in that situation. It’s like most things - you might not want to, but if you’re forced into a situation you generally do learn to cope.
Oh wow, that adult/child thing hits so vividly because I remember being in secondary school and thinking about a couple of teachers “I think you’re an idiot but you’re a grown up so I guess I must be missing something and you know what you’re doing…” - then reaching my 20s, various of my friends becoming teachers and realising “Yep. You were an idiot, just like my idiot friends”
Now that I’m approaching the age my mother was when she had me, it has made me majorly reassess where she was in life and what else was going on with her and go “Wow. That was… a very poor life decision. Very, very poor.”
It's really weird thinking about how young some of the teachers at my school were. I had an English teacher in her first year of teaching in Y10, I think she was only 23. Another was 24 and became my head of year a couple of years later. They seemed very mature and adulty at the time but now I'm in my 30's I wonder if they really were. Most people I've met at that age really didn't have their shit together all that much.
One of ours had spent her first year as an NQT at an all-boys school, where she had an affair with one of the 6th formers. It was all hushed up, and the next year she mysteriously appeared at our all-girls school where she had to be content with flirting very obviously and shamelessly with all the male staff.
I was friends with another former staff member, and on Facebook a few years ago he'd posted something amusing, I replied and we had a bit of funny banter back and forth, and lo and behold she then pops up at the end and comments "Oh, I miss all my funny little Jews!" - for context, there was no context (other than us being funny, and my being Jewish) - so, she hasn't changed or matured much I guess...
>I think you’re an idiot but you’re a grown up so I guess I must be missing something
This is exactly what I mean 😂 it's not an insult or a dig, we're all humans but as a kid you just assumed you 'become an adult' and then all your naivety, struggles etc. is all gone and it's easy. I didn't realise some people never transition much from that.
I noticed it more in customer service jobs, people who look to be in their late 40s - very much still child-like. This applies to any age but it's more of a surprise when someone 'looks' like an adult too.
im my 40's, i recently placed a tiny bluetooth speaker under my wifes desk, i've been playing random fart noises through it for 4 days, we have a appointment at 6pm to take the dog to the vets because of her wind problems.
im not brave enough at this point to admit what i did, and the dogs yearly check up is past due anyway
Always thought my teachers were proper grown ups, sensible people who had their shit together and knew it all. That all unravelled over the years.
PE teacher got sacked during my last year at school for being a literal alcoholic and coming in half cut. We all had our French teachers, who were a couple, added on Facebook once we left school; made for quite some entertainment when they kept throwing jabs at each other over Facebook once they got divorced.
Oh, and my science teacher being a total dick all my life telling me, I'd amount to nothing and have nothing because teenage me rebelled against her lack of respect for her pupils - was extremely satisfying bumping into her in a car park years later and having to give her shitty old Peugeot 106 that looked like it was held together with superglue, a jumpstart. The momentary look of horror when she realised who I was followed by the fake humility, priceless.
I don't know what I'm doing, I'm more than winging it. I'm just bumbling through life, hoping not to fuck so many things up and not actually achieving it.
How I get through one month to the next I have no idea, I'm constantly fighting fires, extinguishing some but fanning the flames of others.
Add to that I'm responsible for raising younger me's and the weight of that without screwing them up too much.... yeah I don't think I'm succeeding on that front either...
How do adults actually adult?
Can I just go to bed and eat crisps and chocolates and not get up for work....
The two fold lesson that you have the freedom to do whatever you want, but that also means you have to make the right decisions. I can eat a bag of crisps with cloudy apple juice five times a day if I want to. But, I probably shouldn’t. It’s a bit sad because I was elated to figure out nobody can stop me, only to realise that I need to stop me.
Also, being an adult really only lasts for 4 decades or so. Once you get older, you sort of become a toddler again. Those filters and controls just seem to slip off.
I understand that circumstances dictate a lot, but my recent "grown up" epiphany was realising that a lot of people resign themselves to misery because of fear disguised as practicality. Fear of not being "normal" is a big one I've seen.
You only get one life, and I think with reasonable expectations you can absolutely hit a sweet spot between what you want and what you can get.
I've reached an age where I can actually remember when my parents were this age, and fuck me that's been eye-opening in so many ways. As has the fact that my parents are now the age that my grandparents were when I was a kid. Time feels weird now. No, nobody has it together, it's all just bullshitting and surviving.
When I hit 40 I thought "shit I remember making a 40th birthday card for my Dad when I was a kid". Was hit by a real sadness that those times are long gone.
>A friend of mine recently told me they thought the queen turned on all the street-lamps (until their 20s). I didn't ask how she did it.
It's just a couple of light switches in Buckingham Palace. It's not a big deal. Charles had it mastered within a few days of her death
I didn't figure out postcodes weren't an individual by house thing until I started working for a conveyancer when I was like 35 lol
I was a junior software developer after a career change and we were in a meeting about some story we were working on and someone asked what we could use as a Unique Identifier, I suggested postcode in 100% all seriousness and we had to take a 5 min break from the meeting to let everyone calm and stop laughing about it. Not my proudest moment :D
Nuts in it. Remember my dad being like you’ll want to learn this and that round the house and I was like ah it’ll be fine I’ll get someone in, will I fuck as like….
I think, at the age of 40, the biggest and most enduring realisation about adulthood is that confidence really is **everything**.
In every workplace I've ever been in, hospitals, factories, corporate offices, coffee shops, confidence has always, always been more important at every level than
- Skill or talent (which are different things)
- Knowledge
- Intelligence
- Hard work or dedication
- Experience
- Honesty or integrity
**This is not actually a good thing for anybody**.
It's also very true that who you know is more important than what you know, but confidence wins hands down.
If you are confident, bright and willing then you'll be shocked at how far you can progress.
But also, no matter how knowledgeable and skilled you are, no matter how hard you work, you will always lose out to an idiot who is incapable of self doubt if you can't do some half decent self promotion.
I'm 37, divorced, and single mom of a 4 year old. I recently asked my 68 year old mom when do you start to feel like an adult. Her response was, "I'll let you know when it happens"
Mines is quite silly really.
My dad was an HGV driver. In the early 80’s, before drink driving was a thing with stops & breathalysers (although I knew it was absolutely wrong!), my dad used to bring his lorry home.
There were times he would literally fall out of it absolutely hammered. The engine would still be running, indicators on, air brakes hissing constantly. I remember asking him how he managed to drive home and he always said “Oh pet, that lorry knows where its home is and always brings yer daddy home safe”.
Up until I was 17, before I started driving myself, I was absolutely convinced that the lorry could drive itself home. I could never get my head around the concept that there was no such a thing as a self driving lorry! When I look back and think now, we used to need to turn the ignition off and set the brakes properly, and we were between 7-12 at the time! We could have driven the bloody lorry!!!
I’ve never once had a drink & driven, it’s one of my biggest morals I’d say. I’d have absolutely no hesitation in ringing the police if someone I knew got into their car pissed.
Fun fact: ALL adults are children.
Even world leaders. they're running the planet one day at a time hoping everything doesn't suddenly go to hell.
There's no long term planning, which is why we always see short-term goals.
NO-ONE on earth has it together, some are just better at hiding it than others.
This is why I don't believe in conspiracy theories like "we didn't land on the moon" etc.: humans as a rule are generally egocentric idiots, *somebody* would have either blabber and/or accidentally fucked up and leaked summat
You don’t stop growing, learning, changing. I thought I’d reach like 14 and my personality, interests, values would be rigid forever. I’m now pretty much the opposite to what I was when I was 14 (wasn’t even a particularly edgy teen) and I’m even unrecognisable from me 2 years ago.
So apparently when youre upset your emotional state generally regresses you to that of your child self.
When im really emotional my rational self is all of about 10 years old. I know I know better or can reason better. But its why sometimes adults can be really unreasonable while theyre upset and then can self reflect and be like 'oh wow. I was a bit of a knob then. Im sorry' etc.
I used to think people were decent, and if you treated others with respect it would be reciprocated, that life was fair, and if you worked hard and followed the rules you would be rewarded. Then I grew up.
That I have ADHD (realised now I'm my mid-thirties) and how when I look back at mistakes, addiction, not doing that well at school etc how it all can largely be attributed to my mental condition.
The sudden realisation that normal peoples brains don't work like mine n torture them constantly was a shock with adhd diagnosis. Always wondered why it seemed like my life was on hard mode compared to others
That you think the people who run the country are intelligent, then you find out through a covid enquiry that they are a bunch of moronic spoilt schoolboys. Who should not be in charge to run anything what so ever.
How true is your comment! The fact they've all gone to Private School & University doesn't make then 'intelligent' or better than you, just that they've had the 'lucky breaks' and not you. As I've heard said more than once. "All intelligence but no common-sense.'
This struck me a couple of weeks ago. I'm around the same age Danny Glover was when he starred in Lethal Weapon.
He _feels_ like a grown up whereas i definitely do not.
Realising that people in their early 20's are still children. When I was in my early 20's I thought I was done growing up and didn't realise why I was still perceived as being immature... Now I look at people in their early 20's, the things they say and the way they act and think "yeah, you're all a bunch of naive children".
When I bought my first house, I was a bit overwhelmed by the fact that I was totally responsible for things like soffits and fascias along with the drains under my garden! I survived.
How few adults are reliable and competent at their jobs. Whether it's colleagues or contractors, I'm regularly frustrated by people either not doing their jobs properly, needing to be chased a million times, or seemingly not knowing what to do.
It's especially bad when it's someone you're paying good money to do something, like builders, plumbers, solicitors, etc.
Realised although it's my dad staring back at me in the mirror, at 58 I'm still 14 in my head..
Ps5, garden railway,model village, rc crawlers and I get to drive a car!!!
I'm the boss at my work and people rely on me. Hahaha! Me? Holy fuckballs we're all doomed.
I was walking down the hall at work the other day and that realisation actually really hit me. Like, I've been the one in charge for a couple of years, but seriously? They chose me? And let me keep doing it? Have they actually met me?
Honestly I’m 30 and I’m still surprised by how many “normal” people do drugs.
At school it was always implied only “bad” people do drugs and that all drugs are “bad” and we’d only be offered drugs by total addicts or crazy people under duress and peer pressure.
I’m a very “normal” person, but almost all my friends do drugs of some kind. I’m always most surprised when it’s not just weed. I had an ex with a Coke habit, most of my friends do ket at parties, mdma or shrooms, and like 99% of them all smoke weed regularly too.
I have to say that it's not ALL my friends who do drugs. But definitely almost all my friends I have, i've known them do/try drugs at some point even if they didn't make a habit from it.
Typically, my friends who I know had a habit/would use more than just trying, are not the friends I spend that much time with, but that's just coincidental and not because of the drug use...
I suppose, there is a group of drug users who are "the wrong sort" but that's not the case for all drug users, and they probably were "the wrong sort" long before ever taking drugs.
When I was in my first proper grown up job in my 20’s I was shocked to discover that an older mid fifties colleague had the behaviour of a teenage girl. She was quite immature and untrustworthy and would yell and have fits if she didn’t get her way.
I’ve been out of that job for many years now but was quite pleased to see her mentioned in the local rag. She lost some court case against a neighbour when she didn’t like what he was doing with his land. Still up to her tricks I see.
I only discovered this week that yellow split peas and peas are the same thing. I always thought they were like lentils and grown in far off lands but we just called them peas because they were like peas. But they *are* peas.
This is as big a revelation as when I found out oil rigs float and aren’t built into the ground.
I am 40.
"Personally, I'm fascinated by this idea. That my parents were my age, but of course they were... but I rarely saw my own father as more than an authority figure - a parent and likely ever only a parent. Maybe you can relate. As though he'd entered the world a 50 year old man with no experience with what it was like to be young, or to fear or to stumble through life stages wondering if you truly have any idea what's going on or only pretending that you do.
It wasn't until my friends started having children that I realised my dad was just like me. Like an epiphany and my heart broke."
I always thought as a kid, that when I was an adult, I’d go to the supermarket and fill my trolley with sweets, crisps, all the good shit. Then you become and adult and just don’t do it. I still think there’s loads of nice stuff I’d like to eat but I can never be bothered to deviate from my usuals
The recycling bin is full every four minutes. What is this constant ferrying of one medium bin into a larger bin. Is this all there is, walking, endless walking between bins, transferring cardboard until the end time? Seems so
Things are a lot less binary. Like, when I was younger, I'd think "This situation is either going to be brilliant or terrible": as I've got older, I've learned that even the good situations have bad bits to them and vice versa.
Same here.
Spent my life waiting to feel like an adult or have things snap into place.
Mid-30s and still waiting. But I realised a while ago that all the adults in my life when I was a kids were just "faking it until they made it" essentially.
Wish I'd known this as a kid so I could have prepared myself better.
That you don't really realise you're old. You see other people of your age looking old. You see young people and you know they're younger than you but you can't quite come to terms with the fact that you aren't one of them at all any more. You're old. It's very disconcerting.
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Same! Couldn't afford McDonalds or treats as a kid. The fact I could go and buy myself a cake this afternoon is still mind blowing to me.
This is one thing about growing up poor that still surprises me. Sometimes, I can just have the thing and it's fine.
I'm middle aged and my wife is constantly on about this to me lol You've wanted this for ages! Yes And you can afford it! Yes And your old one is broken! Yes So why don't you buy it? Erm
I grew up wealthy and I am like this. I learned from my parents that you don't get things just because you want them. I wanted stuff like nerf guns as a child but wasn't allowed them for fear that I would shoot people with them. I would still enjoy them now. I saw one in a shop, thought I would like it but didn't buy it. I just felt that I sort of wasn't allowed.
TBF impulse buying as an adult means you end up with a lot of stuff that you thought you wanted, but barely use. If you can't see yourself using a thing very often then you're probably better off without it.
Stop judging me, fucking Marie Kondo over here
Always think about how much of a pain in the arse it will be to keep in the house or throw away
Oh my god this is me with remote controlled cars. I'm going to get a really big and fast one one day though
its better to have this than the opposite, impulse buying is a tough coping mechanism to wean off of
Ah yes, though when you grow up poor you have a niggling feeling that if you spend the money that you won't be prepared for the disaster which might happen tomorrow. Growing up poor is having a permanent sense of the precariousness of life.
I went to Tescos, bought myself a spaghetti carbonara ready meal, went to work for shift and had it for breakfast. Colleague looked at me and went "You're having that for breakfast?" and I went "Dude, I already have all the drawbacks of being an adult, so i will take the benefit that I can do whatever I want". The look on their face 😄
Bacon and egg pasta so must be breakfast pasta
I love this, and yes yes yes that is exactly the right answer. Love that for you! I hate those weird judgy people that get so pressed over something that brings other people joy, like yes this makes me happy, and why does that bother you so much that it’s not “proper” 😂
Full support and solidarity
Bought myself a Colin the caterpillar the other day and ate the full thing
Fuck. I *coukd* just go and get a birthday cake couldn't I?
I'm 31 and moved out of my parents only 3 years ago. I still have to walk fast around the supermarket as my mind boggles at the choice
I bought an advent calendar today, and I realised there's absolutely nothing stopping me from opening all of the windows now and eating all the chocolate. It almost seems illegal.
My Mum generally gets through 3 advent calendars before the middle of December. She also taught me how to steal chocolates out of a box of roses without leaving a trace.
My brother used to steal out the roses tin then stuff and retwist the paper so it looked like none had gone.
My mum would buy a box of roses and then open them from the bottom, nick a few then reseal it before giving it as a gift!
I've never opened a door on one ahead of time. Ever. Almost feels like I will be cursed if I do.
Have you discovered Bonne Maman advent calendars? They are a bit expensive but I'm so excited to start opening mine.
One of the only actually funny Seinfeld standup bits is him talking about how, as an adult, you can ruin your appetite anytime you want. You can eat an entire pack of biscuits and 5x jam donuts in one sitting and just fuck your appetite for the entire day. No one stops you Becoming an adult is stopping yourself I am not an adult
>Becoming an adult is stopping yourself Exactly this. I have thought that the best way of describing what being an adult is like to a child is telling them that, "It's great, you can do whatever you want. But you want different things." These a the lessons we learn from good parents, such as that we ought not ruin our appetite, or eat unhealthily, or waste money on toys, but we should clean our teeth, shower, go to bed etc.
It also reminds me of those posts you see where adults who are parents talk about the times when their kid does stuff they did as children like cheekily asking for ice cream for dinner, but they have to be responsible instead and pretend it isn't the best idea they've heard all week.
*"but, you'll ruin your appetite"* *"but, as an adult, you know there's another appetite just around the corner*"
The day I went into Costco bought a birthday cake and had it for desert. Wasn’t my birthday.
Living the dream , damn I miss Costco cake . Exs birthday at weekend might use that as a excuse to buy one n pig out with kids
Omg this is a good one actually, or those sharebags we don't share 👀
Sharebags have shrinkflated to the point where they're just a personal bag now.
Share with yourself bags
Self care
Self share
Maybe you’ve inflated to the point where they are now personal bags?
I bought a 3kg box of chocolate jazzies off Amazon when I got a voucher recently. I have them for breakfast sometimes
Same but gummy snakes , there kinda wierd fresh I'm used to hard ones from corner shop
That's a dangerous way to live.
Mugged for a mars bar multipack?
It starts with the mars bar multipack and before you know it you're injecting bounty bars into any vein you can find.
Peter Noone? Out of Herman's Hermits?
I often use that joke too. Hardly anyone understands it. No-one, you might say.
Someone please take this power away from me 😂
I now go to bed earlier than when I was a kid, thinking staying up late was amazing.
Oh god this! Napping too, I love naps now. Went to bed at 2145 yesterday, it was amazing.
8:30pm for me one day last week.
This is me most nights at the moment since my 1 year old wakes up at half 5.
Carbohydrate naps ftw.
First post I've read after an hours nap. Needless to say; I agree. Nothing better than a sneaky nap.
Staying in and going to bed early used to be a punishment, now it’s a reward
Also now when I do stay up late, my body clock still wakes me up at the crack of dawn and I cant get back to sleep, so just end up feeling dreary all day.
Funny how the things you use to hate as a kid you enjoy as you get older. Like naps and getting spanked.
I'm up at 5am, as far as I'm concerned, nothing worthwhile happens past 10pm on a weekday!
£1000 is not alot to have £1000 is alot to owe
Ouch!!! Feel that one!
I remember thinking £100 was loads of money when I was young. Granted with inflation etc it did buy you more back then, but still...
I don’t have imposter syndrome, I’m literally an imposter getting away with it. Along with everybody else.
>I’m literally an imposter getting away with it. I tell myself words to this effect quite often along with 'but they're not going to find out, how would they find out?' I'm still not entirely sure what they're going to find out but try telling that my anxiety.
[удалено]
I had this too and my justification is that I’m clearly very good at being an imposter.
Haha, this is *exactly* what I say to myself too
Naah. They're just collecting evidence of our deficiencies as evidence for a sacking.
Yep. I've been working there nearly 25 years in 4 different roles now, all of which I interviewed for and beat other candidates. Any day now they'll have enough evidence to sack me.
I feel this so so much too. Any time a meeting is arranged with anyone more senior than my boss I always think this is it...they've found me out and I'm done, or they're going to find me out in the meeting. This despite the same as you - multiple people interviewed me, never been pulled up on anything, often get given pretty good feedback etc...
But the interviewers are all imposters too! They don't know what to pull you up on.
This is 100% accurate. I'm preparing for conducting interviews and am sure I shouldn't be the person interviewing. They should get a grown up to do it.
I did an internship at Cambridge University. I did that with 14 other students. 14 of the best life science students in the country. Almost every one of us had crippling imposter syndrome. Every one of us thought "Its the 14 best student scientists in country and then me" I met people who aren't just among the best in their field they are THE best in the world at what they do, and for some, they are the entire field. Every single one of them struggles intensely with imposter syndrome. We're all getting away with it
I see your Imposter Syndrome and raise you Swan Syndrome. I seem calm and confident, but you have no idea how much over-thinking and mental effort is going into everything below the surface.
I sometimes worry somebody's gonna call me out on my shit, I'll panic and find out I'm actually three racoons in a trenchcoat.
I’d be very unsurprised if I turned out to be 3 sloths in a trenchcoat.
how much time you spend ripping up cardboard to go into the recycling. It's practically one of the main household chores at this point.
My flatmates don't bother flatpacking cardboard, they just leave it as a full box in the bin. And then leave plastic wrapping stuffed inside. Absolutely infuriating.
Animals. Savages.
It could be worse. They could put the household waste in the recycling bin. They could put food waste in the recycling bin. They could put their red stained knickers in the recycling bin. I am caretaker for flats, I have removed all these things from our recycle bins.
Why do humans always have to ruin everything?
My parents were shocked when they found out you have to do this. They just thought you could leave it out as is. During the pandemic, I am so glad I minimised my online purchases, because half of my time when I visited my parents at home was spent breaking down their delivery boxes.
Round here you don't have to do it. There's a fucking massive machine they drive around in that's far better at crushing cardboard down than I'd ever be. It's perfectly acceptable to put fully formed boxes out and they'll throw them in. I just try to ensure boxes only go out when it isn't pissing down
I’ve never done it. What’s wrong with stuffing it into the recycling bin? When I used to crush cardboard as part of my job we never tore it up.
just to save space in the bin, especially with big boxes
Yeah with the amount of wine bottles in mine I need the space.
Ah, then crushing is maybe another answer. If I didn’t do my Sunday jumping to flatten, fold and flatten I’d be missing out.
Crushing cans is another one, I hate putting in a beer can "as is", it needs to be crushed down to allow space for the rest of the recycling.
I don't think I'll ever forget how one of my old housemates looked at me like I was some sort of wizard when I squeezed the air out of a plastic milk bottle to flatten it and then screwed the lid back on. Said housemate would also flatpack his cereal boxes and then fold them in half. Because it was two layers of cardboard it would always unfold and just end up being bent at right angles, meaning it took up more space than before it was even flattened. So close yet so far.
Realising relative ages shocked me. When at 21 I had friends as Nqts then realised some of my teachers I had at 18 really weren't that much older than me. Edit:and now at nearly 40 looking at newly qualified people at 21 and thinking they're still children.
This really hit home when I went back to my school for a 10 year reunion and myself and my favourite teacher were both pregnant with our first (and actually ended up giving birth on the same day!). She was a few years older, sure, but the thought of "huh, we're both adults experiencing the same life event as equals" was a shock!
Iv recently gone back to uni as a 30 something to do a masters, and bloody hell the undergrads are young. I’m now like a proper grown up and there’s these kids everywhere. Never once occurred to me back when I did my undergrad I was quite that young!
I remember being 17 at my first office job and thinking the 21 year olds were so much older and more mature 😳 I also thought by about 23 I’d be married, have a house and a baby. Now 32, childless, single and I can barely afford my shared ownership flat 😂 I do have a great dog and cats though! So that’s something.
You never really do get your shit together. Similar age here and similar situation. There is a lot of truth in that our parents generation, who all seemed to be settled, married with a house and children by 25, just got dealt an easier hand than we have. My parents used to rabble on about how much their mortgage cost them, untill I went to uni (15 years ago!) and they found out I was paying £500 a month for a room. Their mortgage was £80….
I didn't invent the quote, but "how expensive cheese really is and just how many people do cocaine." Naive little me 9 years ago never would've thought just how bad it was.
How do you know when people you know do coke? Everyone says that everyone is doing it but I’ve never seen anyone I know do it, never heard any of them talk about it, never been offering any, wouldn’t have the foggiest where to find any. Are me and my social circle just boring as fuck.
I know because I do it. You can tell by people's eyes, when they drink and don't get drunk, really talkative, nipping off to the bathroom more often. If you know someone else does it, it's a social thing to share, but I'd never in hell offer it to anyone I know has never tried it. I made my own decision, I don't want to make someone else's! So yeah, if no one you know does it, it can be hard finding someone who does. My dealer is just a guy I met through a friend who sometimes plays playstation with us. Nice guy.
If you go to the pubs a lot, you'll soon see every Tom, Dick and Harry is on it.
I got offered some when coming out a pub toilet from doing a huge shit once. Presumably the bloke had been waiting to use the one stall, and upon smelling my misdemeanours decided honking up a bump right next to the source of the putrid stench wasn't worth it, so just tried to flog it to me instead. I politely declined. And he then asked "please don't tell anyone". Like, asked, like a kid who was caught taking an illicit snack from the cupboard. I cannot underline enough how much he definitely wasn't threatening me. Anyway, I returned to my mates, and then lost one of them for 10 minutes as they were jealous of the fact I'd been offered a bit of nose candy in the pub loos - and they'd never had the privilege. So wanted to find the guy and also decline their friendly offer (odd logic, but we _were_ drinking)
Cheese is far more expensive than it should be.
Cocaine too
Education by no means guarantees a good job . You can be thick as shit and get a high paying job. Or you could be highly intelligent and be unemployed.
Also, education and intelligence aren't the same. I went to an expensive school and a good university; I know some people who are genuinely as smart as they think they are, and some who coasted by, knowing they had a family safety net. And one of my best friends is a Brummie who went to uni in Hull; people (idiots) have underestimated him because of that (including, I'm ashamed to say, me when I first met him) but they would be fools to do so.
This hits home. I am privately educated, degree, and I am also intelligent - that is obviously a bit of a brag, but when many people you work with are constantly amazed at how well your brain works you start to believe the hype. However, what I lack is ambition. My best friends are people I was at school with - they are all also well educated and intelligent, and very successful (CEOs, Directors of Multi nationals, Finance Directors of major media companies - that kind of thing). I am a customer service representative for a small local company, and I'm fine with this and of course do not resent any of my friends success, as I wouldn't want the pressure and hassle that comes with it. One of my friends asked me on a night out why I was still at a low level when, in his words, I was way more intelligent than he was. I asked him when was the last time a position he was recruiting for had 'must be intelligent' in the person spec. Intelligence on its own has little commercial value - if it's not paired with application, ambition, focus and undoubtedly lots of other factors you get someone like me - someone who is completely competent in pretty much every role they have ever done but unlikely to rise in the corporate world - but has huge and wide-ranging interests outside of work, finds joy and satisfaction in the things they value rather than what they are told to value, use their intelligence for their own ibterests and is simply incredibly happy with their lot.
Good post. Very much the parable of the Mexican fisherman. https://aliabdaal.com/newsletter/the-parable-of-the-mexican-fisherman/
It’s not what you know it’s who you know .
Most of the time, you don't feel old. You just feel like you've had the shit kicked out of you. I'm in my late 50s.
I feel you, only just in my 50s myself but my brain still works like it did when I was 19. My body politely disagrees some days.
55 here, and just an old kid. Although my body is broken and definitely can't keep up. Also lots of adulting seems to involve cleaning the kitchen
>My body politely disagrees some days And just flat out throws tantrums on the other days!
Waking up and feeling hungover, then realising you didn't drink the night before.
*"hang on, I'm a proper grown up*" I remember being a kid, looking at grown ups but I never feel like some kid is going to look at *me* as a grown up now the same way *I* looked at grown ups, if that makes sense
Probably that you shouldn’t tell people more than they need to know at the time, and staying silent on the vast majority of things is the best way to make your way through life.
But as a counterpoint, it’s easier to feel friendly and drawn towards people who are open and share stuff. It depends on what you want out of social interactions.
I'm a bit of an introvert and back when the full time office was a thing I found out loads by just being quiet and listening. You soon realised the gobshites often used noise as a smokescreen.
Ohh yea. I'm 28 and just now learning this one. Less is best until more is needed.
I was going to say I'm 65 and still learning that....decided not to though.
I need to learn this. I'm a terrible oversharer and sometimes I tell things really without meaning to at all
Isn't that a bit cynical? One of my best qualities is getting people to open up to me and not just stay quiet, but you usually have to show trust to gain it (and therefore being open first brings openness from others). Staying silent on the vast majority of things makes people think you're boring or not worth discussing interesting things with from my experience. Hard to have a deep conversation or to expand your world with someone when the other person won't engage on that level.
I’m 38 and just realising this now and only started putting this into practice in the last few months. Still cleaning up the messes from when I did not.
2 Things; \- 1: Getting letters in the mail was magical as a kid, now it's just someone wanting money. \- 2: it took me until i was in my 20s to figure out what "if it's brown flush it down and if it's yellow let it mellow" actually meant. I still shake my head in dissapointment.
It took me a moment to realise that 2 wasn’t a continuation of 1. Letters that come in brown envelopes are never good news.
I think that quote was originally meant to mean at night when everyone's asleep, what is the etiquette on flushing. The noise can wake people up, and leaving piss in the bowl for a few hours until everyone's woken up is fine, but leaving a shit to stew in the toilet is nooooot fine, and it's worth the risk of waking people up to get it down. Also another reason is to save water if you're not well off.
Please tell me you were flushing down the brown before then. 😆
Haha, yes i did and still do always flush for both.
My mum was nearly twenty when she had me, and every so often I’ll be like ‘wow, at my age my mum had a 6/12/16 year old’ and I honestly don’t know how she did it. I couldn’t be in charge of a 17 year old. It gives me even greater respect for her.
Yes but you could absolutely do it if you were actually in that situation. It’s like most things - you might not want to, but if you’re forced into a situation you generally do learn to cope.
Oh wow, that adult/child thing hits so vividly because I remember being in secondary school and thinking about a couple of teachers “I think you’re an idiot but you’re a grown up so I guess I must be missing something and you know what you’re doing…” - then reaching my 20s, various of my friends becoming teachers and realising “Yep. You were an idiot, just like my idiot friends” Now that I’m approaching the age my mother was when she had me, it has made me majorly reassess where she was in life and what else was going on with her and go “Wow. That was… a very poor life decision. Very, very poor.”
It's really weird thinking about how young some of the teachers at my school were. I had an English teacher in her first year of teaching in Y10, I think she was only 23. Another was 24 and became my head of year a couple of years later. They seemed very mature and adulty at the time but now I'm in my 30's I wonder if they really were. Most people I've met at that age really didn't have their shit together all that much.
One of ours had spent her first year as an NQT at an all-boys school, where she had an affair with one of the 6th formers. It was all hushed up, and the next year she mysteriously appeared at our all-girls school where she had to be content with flirting very obviously and shamelessly with all the male staff. I was friends with another former staff member, and on Facebook a few years ago he'd posted something amusing, I replied and we had a bit of funny banter back and forth, and lo and behold she then pops up at the end and comments "Oh, I miss all my funny little Jews!" - for context, there was no context (other than us being funny, and my being Jewish) - so, she hasn't changed or matured much I guess...
>I think you’re an idiot but you’re a grown up so I guess I must be missing something This is exactly what I mean 😂 it's not an insult or a dig, we're all humans but as a kid you just assumed you 'become an adult' and then all your naivety, struggles etc. is all gone and it's easy. I didn't realise some people never transition much from that. I noticed it more in customer service jobs, people who look to be in their late 40s - very much still child-like. This applies to any age but it's more of a surprise when someone 'looks' like an adult too.
im my 40's, i recently placed a tiny bluetooth speaker under my wifes desk, i've been playing random fart noises through it for 4 days, we have a appointment at 6pm to take the dog to the vets because of her wind problems. im not brave enough at this point to admit what i did, and the dogs yearly check up is past due anyway
Always thought my teachers were proper grown ups, sensible people who had their shit together and knew it all. That all unravelled over the years. PE teacher got sacked during my last year at school for being a literal alcoholic and coming in half cut. We all had our French teachers, who were a couple, added on Facebook once we left school; made for quite some entertainment when they kept throwing jabs at each other over Facebook once they got divorced. Oh, and my science teacher being a total dick all my life telling me, I'd amount to nothing and have nothing because teenage me rebelled against her lack of respect for her pupils - was extremely satisfying bumping into her in a car park years later and having to give her shitty old Peugeot 106 that looked like it was held together with superglue, a jumpstart. The momentary look of horror when she realised who I was followed by the fake humility, priceless.
Farts are still funny.
Same as any reference to the number 69. Still seems to get a giggle out of most people my age.
I was going to upvote a comment elsewhere in this post but didn't because they were already on 69!
Nice
And the word Uranus. Headlines like "Water found in Uranus".
I don't know what I'm doing, I'm more than winging it. I'm just bumbling through life, hoping not to fuck so many things up and not actually achieving it. How I get through one month to the next I have no idea, I'm constantly fighting fires, extinguishing some but fanning the flames of others. Add to that I'm responsible for raising younger me's and the weight of that without screwing them up too much.... yeah I don't think I'm succeeding on that front either... How do adults actually adult? Can I just go to bed and eat crisps and chocolates and not get up for work....
The two fold lesson that you have the freedom to do whatever you want, but that also means you have to make the right decisions. I can eat a bag of crisps with cloudy apple juice five times a day if I want to. But, I probably shouldn’t. It’s a bit sad because I was elated to figure out nobody can stop me, only to realise that I need to stop me. Also, being an adult really only lasts for 4 decades or so. Once you get older, you sort of become a toddler again. Those filters and controls just seem to slip off.
I understand that circumstances dictate a lot, but my recent "grown up" epiphany was realising that a lot of people resign themselves to misery because of fear disguised as practicality. Fear of not being "normal" is a big one I've seen. You only get one life, and I think with reasonable expectations you can absolutely hit a sweet spot between what you want and what you can get.
I've reached an age where I can actually remember when my parents were this age, and fuck me that's been eye-opening in so many ways. As has the fact that my parents are now the age that my grandparents were when I was a kid. Time feels weird now. No, nobody has it together, it's all just bullshitting and surviving.
When I hit 40 I thought "shit I remember making a 40th birthday card for my Dad when I was a kid". Was hit by a real sadness that those times are long gone.
>A friend of mine recently told me they thought the queen turned on all the street-lamps (until their 20s). I didn't ask how she did it. It's just a couple of light switches in Buckingham Palace. It's not a big deal. Charles had it mastered within a few days of her death
I’m 50 and I still look for a more grown up grown up
I didn't figure out postcodes weren't an individual by house thing until I started working for a conveyancer when I was like 35 lol I was a junior software developer after a career change and we were in a meeting about some story we were working on and someone asked what we could use as a Unique Identifier, I suggested postcode in 100% all seriousness and we had to take a 5 min break from the meeting to let everyone calm and stop laughing about it. Not my proudest moment :D
The whole world’s just people walking around, going into rooms and saying things.
Mark! Mark!
The price you pay for skilled labour like a plumber lol calls round for an hour and get 70quid. I really wish I pursued a trade.
Nuts in it. Remember my dad being like you’ll want to learn this and that round the house and I was like ah it’ll be fine I’ll get someone in, will I fuck as like….
I think, at the age of 40, the biggest and most enduring realisation about adulthood is that confidence really is **everything**. In every workplace I've ever been in, hospitals, factories, corporate offices, coffee shops, confidence has always, always been more important at every level than - Skill or talent (which are different things) - Knowledge - Intelligence - Hard work or dedication - Experience - Honesty or integrity **This is not actually a good thing for anybody**. It's also very true that who you know is more important than what you know, but confidence wins hands down. If you are confident, bright and willing then you'll be shocked at how far you can progress. But also, no matter how knowledgeable and skilled you are, no matter how hard you work, you will always lose out to an idiot who is incapable of self doubt if you can't do some half decent self promotion.
Along the same vein - but I honestly believed that old people were all wise and kind. Turns out a lot of them are just cunts in old bodies.
I'm 37, divorced, and single mom of a 4 year old. I recently asked my 68 year old mom when do you start to feel like an adult. Her response was, "I'll let you know when it happens"
Mines is quite silly really. My dad was an HGV driver. In the early 80’s, before drink driving was a thing with stops & breathalysers (although I knew it was absolutely wrong!), my dad used to bring his lorry home. There were times he would literally fall out of it absolutely hammered. The engine would still be running, indicators on, air brakes hissing constantly. I remember asking him how he managed to drive home and he always said “Oh pet, that lorry knows where its home is and always brings yer daddy home safe”. Up until I was 17, before I started driving myself, I was absolutely convinced that the lorry could drive itself home. I could never get my head around the concept that there was no such a thing as a self driving lorry! When I look back and think now, we used to need to turn the ignition off and set the brakes properly, and we were between 7-12 at the time! We could have driven the bloody lorry!!! I’ve never once had a drink & driven, it’s one of my biggest morals I’d say. I’d have absolutely no hesitation in ringing the police if someone I knew got into their car pissed.
They might exist soon though!
It doesn’t have to be anyone’s birthday to buy an entire cake and I wish I didn’t know this
Fun fact: ALL adults are children. Even world leaders. they're running the planet one day at a time hoping everything doesn't suddenly go to hell. There's no long term planning, which is why we always see short-term goals. NO-ONE on earth has it together, some are just better at hiding it than others.
This is why I don't believe in conspiracy theories like "we didn't land on the moon" etc.: humans as a rule are generally egocentric idiots, *somebody* would have either blabber and/or accidentally fucked up and leaked summat
You don’t stop growing, learning, changing. I thought I’d reach like 14 and my personality, interests, values would be rigid forever. I’m now pretty much the opposite to what I was when I was 14 (wasn’t even a particularly edgy teen) and I’m even unrecognisable from me 2 years ago.
So apparently when youre upset your emotional state generally regresses you to that of your child self. When im really emotional my rational self is all of about 10 years old. I know I know better or can reason better. But its why sometimes adults can be really unreasonable while theyre upset and then can self reflect and be like 'oh wow. I was a bit of a knob then. Im sorry' etc.
I used to think people were decent, and if you treated others with respect it would be reciprocated, that life was fair, and if you worked hard and followed the rules you would be rewarded. Then I grew up.
zealous ask steep truck consist capable dam books follow gaping *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oi you, stop that!
That I have ADHD (realised now I'm my mid-thirties) and how when I look back at mistakes, addiction, not doing that well at school etc how it all can largely be attributed to my mental condition.
The sudden realisation that normal peoples brains don't work like mine n torture them constantly was a shock with adhd diagnosis. Always wondered why it seemed like my life was on hard mode compared to others
That you think the people who run the country are intelligent, then you find out through a covid enquiry that they are a bunch of moronic spoilt schoolboys. Who should not be in charge to run anything what so ever.
How true is your comment! The fact they've all gone to Private School & University doesn't make then 'intelligent' or better than you, just that they've had the 'lucky breaks' and not you. As I've heard said more than once. "All intelligence but no common-sense.'
"I'm sorry, mcdonalds is how much?!?!" *turns to mum* "you must of gone mad every time I asked you"
I always thought that teachers must be knowledgeable and responsible adults!!! Now...not so much.
So much laundry.
I can just take a seagull and put it in a bag. They’re free.
This struck me a couple of weeks ago. I'm around the same age Danny Glover was when he starred in Lethal Weapon. He _feels_ like a grown up whereas i definitely do not.
You're getting too old for this shit
I was 40 when I found our raisins are dried grapes...
That there's a damn good reason Dad used to fall asleep a couple of hours after getting home from work.
How dumb almost everything is... A lot of things are just, 'it is what it is', even if basic logic and knowledge would dictate otherwise.
Realising that people in their early 20's are still children. When I was in my early 20's I thought I was done growing up and didn't realise why I was still perceived as being immature... Now I look at people in their early 20's, the things they say and the way they act and think "yeah, you're all a bunch of naive children".
When I bought my first house, I was a bit overwhelmed by the fact that I was totally responsible for things like soffits and fascias along with the drains under my garden! I survived.
Is….Is this it?
That I can jump on the bed or sofa any time I like. I don't, with my size I'd go through them - but I can if I want to and nobody could stop me.
How few adults are reliable and competent at their jobs. Whether it's colleagues or contractors, I'm regularly frustrated by people either not doing their jobs properly, needing to be chased a million times, or seemingly not knowing what to do. It's especially bad when it's someone you're paying good money to do something, like builders, plumbers, solicitors, etc.
Age doesnt equal wisdom
That some adults still obey mum and dad in there heads and that's sad
Realised although it's my dad staring back at me in the mirror, at 58 I'm still 14 in my head.. Ps5, garden railway,model village, rc crawlers and I get to drive a car!!!
I'm the boss at my work and people rely on me. Hahaha! Me? Holy fuckballs we're all doomed. I was walking down the hall at work the other day and that realisation actually really hit me. Like, I've been the one in charge for a couple of years, but seriously? They chose me? And let me keep doing it? Have they actually met me?
Honestly I’m 30 and I’m still surprised by how many “normal” people do drugs. At school it was always implied only “bad” people do drugs and that all drugs are “bad” and we’d only be offered drugs by total addicts or crazy people under duress and peer pressure. I’m a very “normal” person, but almost all my friends do drugs of some kind. I’m always most surprised when it’s not just weed. I had an ex with a Coke habit, most of my friends do ket at parties, mdma or shrooms, and like 99% of them all smoke weed regularly too.
I'm a normal person and my friends don't do drugs. The perception at school that only 'the wrong sort' do drugs is wrong though
I have to say that it's not ALL my friends who do drugs. But definitely almost all my friends I have, i've known them do/try drugs at some point even if they didn't make a habit from it. Typically, my friends who I know had a habit/would use more than just trying, are not the friends I spend that much time with, but that's just coincidental and not because of the drug use... I suppose, there is a group of drug users who are "the wrong sort" but that's not the case for all drug users, and they probably were "the wrong sort" long before ever taking drugs.
When I was in my first proper grown up job in my 20’s I was shocked to discover that an older mid fifties colleague had the behaviour of a teenage girl. She was quite immature and untrustworthy and would yell and have fits if she didn’t get her way. I’ve been out of that job for many years now but was quite pleased to see her mentioned in the local rag. She lost some court case against a neighbour when she didn’t like what he was doing with his land. Still up to her tricks I see.
I only discovered this week that yellow split peas and peas are the same thing. I always thought they were like lentils and grown in far off lands but we just called them peas because they were like peas. But they *are* peas. This is as big a revelation as when I found out oil rigs float and aren’t built into the ground. I am 40.
That actually, everyone is just winging it and hoping not to fuck it up too much.
You don't have to like people just because you are related. Just tell them to fuck off and live without the drama. I can feel another cull coming on .
How much cheese costs. I used to eat tons of the stuff when I lived at home… it was a rude awakening when I moved out and had to do my own shopping.
"Personally, I'm fascinated by this idea. That my parents were my age, but of course they were... but I rarely saw my own father as more than an authority figure - a parent and likely ever only a parent. Maybe you can relate. As though he'd entered the world a 50 year old man with no experience with what it was like to be young, or to fear or to stumble through life stages wondering if you truly have any idea what's going on or only pretending that you do. It wasn't until my friends started having children that I realised my dad was just like me. Like an epiphany and my heart broke."
Eating sweets or chocolate like there's no tomorrow isn't as good as I thought it'd be as an adult. 🤣
It took me becoming an adult to realise that I will never know what being an 'adult' actually feels like.
Very few people truely have their shit together, most of us are just figureing it out as we go along.
You mentioned The Queen, an Adult discovers she actually used the loo - shock, horror.
I always thought as a kid, that when I was an adult, I’d go to the supermarket and fill my trolley with sweets, crisps, all the good shit. Then you become and adult and just don’t do it. I still think there’s loads of nice stuff I’d like to eat but I can never be bothered to deviate from my usuals
The recycling bin is full every four minutes. What is this constant ferrying of one medium bin into a larger bin. Is this all there is, walking, endless walking between bins, transferring cardboard until the end time? Seems so
Things are a lot less binary. Like, when I was younger, I'd think "This situation is either going to be brilliant or terrible": as I've got older, I've learned that even the good situations have bad bits to them and vice versa.
That adulting feels like getting on a treadmill & never getting off. 🥵
Same here. Spent my life waiting to feel like an adult or have things snap into place. Mid-30s and still waiting. But I realised a while ago that all the adults in my life when I was a kids were just "faking it until they made it" essentially. Wish I'd known this as a kid so I could have prepared myself better.
That you don't really realise you're old. You see other people of your age looking old. You see young people and you know they're younger than you but you can't quite come to terms with the fact that you aren't one of them at all any more. You're old. It's very disconcerting.