I was linked to this article the other day, which got me very, very angry. In fact I ranted about it for the next couple of hours to anyone who would listen. Luckily everyone who endured the rant ended up agreeing with me (and joining in on the ranting). It’s about having to grow up once you’re 25 years old. Not in the “you can’t have fun ever” way (though they’re not far off it, actually), more like a “you’re an adult now, so start acting like one”. I admit everyone around the age of 25 ought to smarten up a bit if they hope to survive in the real world, but according to the douchebag who wrote this article once you turn 25 you pretty much forfeit any of the fun stuff you did prior to turning 25.
Well I say balls to that! I am a firm believer in the saying “Growing old is inevitable. Growing up is optional“. There should not be a certain age where people have to grow up and start acting like a well-balanced, respectable adult. Some people choose to do this early in life, some choose to do it when they’re in their mid-twenties, and others don’t seem to do it at all. And it’s all good! Personally I am the latter, I haven’t “grown up” yet and I don’t plan to any time soon. I mean, I have a job, I pay rent and bills, I have responsibilities, I look out for others instead of being a selfish teenager all the time and so on. But I take great offense to this particular article implying that doing the things they listed should kick into gear by the time you’re 25 years old.
The fact is, there is no deadline for when you have to become boring.
Let’s look at this article in more detail, shell we? The first example is Remember to write thank-you notes. Unless we’re talking about a wedding, there is no need to write thank you letters. If you’re a letter-writing sort of person then fair enough, go nuts and write as many as your hand will let you, but most people aren’t and most people don’t care. One friend stated that if he got a thank you note for giving someone a present, he’d probably throw it out without even reading it. He didn’t give the gift for puncy little thank you notes, and so doesn’t expect people to give any to him.
The next one is Do not invite yourself to stay with friends when you travel anymore. Well excuse me! The reasoning is because you should have a job and can therefore get a hotel room. Well maybe I spent all my savings on the damn plane ticket and the hostel beds I used while being in places where I don’t know people. Perhaps a free stay with a friend would allow me to see something I wouldn’t have been able to afford, had I stayed in some hotel. This leads on to the next point Do not expect friends to help you move anymore which is pretty much the same thing. Moving house is expensive, getting removalists to move all your stuff when you’re only moving to the next suburb just adds an extra expense that many people can’t really afford. If your friends are too busy to help you move, then ask some other friends (and maybe think about ditching those scumbag ones who won’t lend a hand).
This one just made me really angry: Do not share the crazy dream you had last night with anyone but your mental wellness professional. If I want to tell my mates about this twisted dream I had that they were in briefly, then I will. We all know dreams aren’t as interesting to other people as they are to you, but if you want to tell people about it, then go ahead. There’s nothing childish about sharing a dream where you and your friend won a million dollars and bought a marshmallow and puppy factory and married famous rockstars.
Do as invitations ask you. OK so you’d be a totally shit friend if you took five friends to a party when the invitaion said +1 only. But that time thing is bollocks. Unless you’re having a dinner party (which is usually a very boring and lame thing to do, in my opinion) then people should be able to turn up whenever they can. Most people tend to have informal parties at their homes or out at bars so it’s not a case of having to be there on time or else miss out. The way people are these days (check out my Case of the Flake People article) you can’t set a specific start time and expect people to adhere to it. Most people can’t and won’t, and so we all suck it up because only arsehole friends care if you turn up late to a party. Your turned up, after all!
Then we have Drinking until you throw up is no longer properly a point of pride. Now, most reasonable people over the age of 19 know it’s not totally awesome to go out four nights a week and drink enought to spew everywhere every single time. But dammit, if I have a massive night out that ends in hilarity/masisve embarrassment/vomiting into someone’s front garden then I am going to recount it to my friends and have a good old laugh about it. Now I’m 26, I’m not going to suddenly stop all my binge drinking completely and start drinking fancy wines in sensible amounts, or start drinking cognac and swishing my glass around so I can smell the aroma. Fuck that! I like my big nights out like the next average, well-balanced person, and by god I will gloat about my misadventures the next day if I want to!
Then there’s Have a real trash receptacle, real Kleenex, and, if you smoke, a real ashtray and get your speakers off the floor which are some of the most boring statements I’ve ever read in my life. I use toilet paper to blow my nose all the time? That makes me immature does it? What-the-fuck-ever! I will use whatever paper-like substance I want to blow my nose, and there’s not a dman thing anyone can say to make me feel like a kid for doing so!And by the way, my speakers ARE on the floor becaue they look good there and I don’t have a proper unit to store them in – if anyone has an issue with that, they can bite me and get out of my house.
I could go into great detail on every single point this girl made, but I’ve already made myself exceptionally angry just by looking at that stupid article the few times I needed to refer to it. My point is, acting a certain way at a certain age doesn’t make you a grown up. Using a hankie, being able to walk in heels, keeping dreams to myself, learning to change a tyre, buying shelves for my speakers and taking my earphone out when talking to shopkeepers does NOT make me an adult. Being my own person and loving myself despite my flaws and bad habits does. Friend are there for you no matter what, a good friend will help you move houses or put you up for a few nights if you ask them nicely. Adhering to these dumb “guidelines” will just end up making you a boring loser and will not win you any new friends.It will probably also cause you to lose you more interesting friends too.
My bestie just summed it up nicely when I asked what he thought I should add to this blog: “They can go and suck my dick”. Very well put.
I agree that the article’s author is very presumptuous in their tone about what you should or should not have by the age of 25 (i.e. job, well-kept home, etc).
However, I think maybe a lot of people are misinterpreting what some of the suggestions in the article actually mean. Really, that’s the fault of the author for not being clear in meaning.
For example, the one about not staying with friends ISN’T saying you can’t stay with friends – though it’s easy to interpret it that way. It’s saying that just because you’ve booked a flight to Melbourne, don’t automatically assume your friends will be cool to let you crash. As it says in the article: ‘Mentioning that you plan a visit to another city may lead to an invitation to stay with a friend or family member, which you may of course accept; assuming that “it’s cool if you crash” is not.’
And the same goes for the one about friends helping you move and so on.
She doesn’t say “use a hankie” but is suggesting that although having a roll of toilet paper on the coffee table to handle the current flu season might be acceptable to you, if you’re having people over, the least you can do is put it away and provide apologies for a lack of tissues later. No one wants to see a roll of toilet paper outside a bathroom unless the reason is entirely obvious.
What the article is really saying is that by the time you’re 25, you should understand that the world doesn’t revolve around you. People have their own shit to deal with and, sometimes, it means they can’t incorporate your needs, too. If they can’t let you crash with them or can’t help you move, it doesn’t make them bad friends / scumbags. In the same way, you should be able to consider how your decisions affect others when you make them.
I’m not actually disagreeing with any of your arguments. I AM apologising for the author’s ability to create a degree of misunderstanding that they did not intend (which can be seen in her responses to similar rants in the article’s comments section).
Jesus, if I took this seriously I’d be truly fucked.
I think that article was made for retards and christians
I totally agree, as does everyone else by the sounds of it. I read it a couple of weeks ago and just cringed at how boring the writer thinks you have to be. Why age 25 anyway? Bit of a random age to choose. It was just a lame post all in all!