Today’s my birthday. I’m 24. I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t cool enough to be like “I’m not going to make it past 18” when I was younger. I mainly stuck to myself and wasn’t really allowed to do anything other than baseball, hanging out with my cousins, and staying the night at my grandparents’. There’s kind of a lot that blows past you after 18 and it’s a surreal realization when you catch on that time is moving, sometimes without you. Here’s a few things I’ve learned during my formative years and as I try to grasp what being an adult truly means, for me. — (24, written August 13, 2017)
Dating Sucks
At 24, depending on your character and preferences, you might’ve been through a handful of relationships (or almost relationships, but we’ll get to that). For me, my prominent relationship experience pretty much stems from three specific relationships rather than all my relationships. My first legitimate “we’re boyfriend/girlfriend” relationship, the shameful relationship, and the serious relationship.
My first “real” girlfriend (like we kissed and did over-the-clothes stuff) used to brag about how she was never going to make it past 18 because she’d have killed herself by then. I was sophomore, 15, she was 14, a freshman. She’s still around, still making questionable health decisions and whatnot. At the time, I thought she was the coolest person I’d ever met. which is pretty cliché as a sheltered teenager who sometimes got to go over to his girlfriend’s house. She wore a lot of rainbow patterned clothing, bragged about emotional distress and self-harm, had killer taste in music, and knew what weed was like. We didn’t last long, and at one point I mistakenly thought and told her I loved her. It’s embarrassing, but these things happen. Hindsight plays a big factor in these examples and for this one I’d realize later just how impactful a seemingly meaningless teenage romance can be. This girl didn’t have to do much to drag me along, and I think she may have known that. Despite being younger, she’d been through more relationship-wise. Sex-wise. And when you’ve never done anything it can be rather intimidating when your girlfriend, whom you absolutely want to impress at every turn, complains about you not being more assertive.
After this teenage relationship wrapped up, it was always in my head that I shouldn’t be nervous about moving forward intimately with my significant other.
The “shameful relationship” sounds insulting, but it’s what it was. I met this second girl at 14 (freshman year) and we wouldn’t really have anything happen until a few years later during our Junior year in high school. She wasn’t particularly popular though this did change as she discovered a fashion sense and a boatload of confidence (good for her, really). I had a huge crush on her when I met her, and she totally knew. Everyone knew. She played on that off and on. I was small and adorable and apparently, everyone loved my hair (though I was just lashing out at having to get a high-and-tight for most of my middle school years) and the sheer number of times I’d been told “I want to put you in my pocket” was outrageous. Being as sheltered as I was, I was just happy she gave me attention. Once junior year hit and I had amassed a modest level of confidence, we ended up “dating” a bunch of times. It’d be a few weeks, maybe a few days here and there. It was weird. She kept doing this super cute thing where she’d call me after class let out (we were at different high schools at this point, but same town) and let me know how many guys she’d kissed or if she had plans to meet up with her ex-boyfriend, just to see how jealous I got. Even now, years later, she still pops back in every so often if she likes a picture I posted or is fresh out of a relationship. I’ve entertained the flirting a few times, but it never amounts to anything.
Once this oddball situation had lost steam towards the end of junior year, I realized how ridiculous I was for putting up with all that nonsense. I made the decision to not do that anymore. No more nonsense!
The serious relationship came soon after this. Within months, even. I’d landed this crazy shot with a girl admittedly way out of my league during my senior year, her junior year. We went to the same high school and instead of doing this all in person, I opted for Facebook flirting. It worked out, I can’t complain. This relationship was serious for a few reasons. It was the kind of relationship where you visit out-of-state family, go on road trips, stay over all the time, and also get into giant fights. It, for me, was the kind of relationship you’d find in a romantic drama where all the cutesy couple stuff is ultimately torn down due to insecurities and tension build up, culminating in a massive blow-out. The kind of fight you have before you make life-altering decisions. I wish I were exaggerating. At 18, everything had lead up to this big scene where I was pulled over on the side of the road, sitting on top of my 17 year old girlfriend in the passenger seat and doing my absolute best to stop her from hitting me and hurting herself. She was drunk. It wasn’t the first time this happened. There’s some messy details and faults on both sides, but the gist of it is it really threw me for a loop. I was not prepared.
The aftermath of this relationship wore on me for a good few years after that, but I walked away with an understanding that you’re going to go through some things you thought you wouldn’t experience until later in life, and you might not even learn anything from it until much later on. I’m still learning from it.
So yeah, dating sucks. It’s never black and white and we’ve likely all made and remade a Tinder. At 24, I’m still dealing with emotional baggage I never expected to have. This where I joke about a mid-life crisis. In a world where it’s easy to give up on a relationship with the help of blocking, unfriending, and unfollowing, why risk the extra weight? This doesn’t apply to everyone. I recently attended a wedding of two high school friends on New Year’s Eve and frankly it’s my favorite Romance story. But I think it’s important to remember that, even in your 20s, things might not work out, and that’s okay. The major takeaways from these experiences are still growing.
A) Learning to not be nervous about progressive intimacy with your significant other evolves into recognizing what you’re both comfortable with and how to approach that.
B) Refusing to deal with any bullshit in a relationship turns into recognizing when things are bad for you and when they’re worth working out.
C) Understanding that you might run into something earlier in life than someone else turns into being aware everyone’s experiences are different and they all contribute to how we handle things in the future.
Friendships are Hard
Listen, I watch a lot of movies. When I think “friendship” I think of the cliche gathering of lifelong friends with varying experiences, shooting the shit at whatever established hangout they have. This has also never happened for me. I’ve struggled with friendship more often than relationships and it can be discouraging. There have been a few prominent friendships I’ll touch on though, and I’ll stick with three examples: the ex, the negative best friend, and the passing friends. (there are probably better titles, but I’m winging it)
For a while after 18, I had this recurring problem where I would end up re-involved with an ex. Often times, it was one of those almost-relationships where you never really commit to something but you still hang out and get super jealous. I was usually cool with what was happening, because we’d hang out and have a good time, a lot of laughs, and repeat until we decided not to do that anymore. When this was happening, I didn’t realize how abnormal it was until someone pointed out how frequently I’d reconnect with an ex only to later drop or be dropped by them. This sort of thing contributes to the Dating Sucks portion, but it also makes friendships difficult. When you’re spending your time getting back in your ex’s good graces while also treating them as a friend, it takes away from meeting new people or strengthening existing friendships. It’s also kind of off-putting to other friends when you’re constantly jumping around to old flames. One ex in particular would pop up every so often and I’d never push back since we always got along famously. The only problem was I had decided dating her was a good idea right after she’d split up with a very good friend of mine. I’m not friends with that guy anymore, sadly. That’s another story. We’d hang out right up until the sexual tension would cause problems, and then wouldn’t see each other for months. It was a weird game. The last time I saw her was when she came over as a booty call (which didn’t pan out), and I haven’t spoken to her since she started dating the aforementioned very good friend again a week later.
These types of friendships, I’d later figure out, were borne out of comfort. It was easier for me to just stick to what I knew because we already had an established banter. Things were fluid. Smooth sailing doesn’t always mean it’s in the right direction. How cheesy?
Next up is the negative best friend, and I think this is more common than some of us realize, but I’ll focus on my own experiences. I met this guy sometime between freshman and sophomore year at the “shameful relationship” girl’s birthday party. He played in a band, so he was cool. There was initially a one-sided (maybe) rivalry between me and him because he was after the same girl I had a huge crush on. Fast forward a few months and we were fast friends. He lived a few streets down from me so we hung out. The negative part comes a bit later. For some context, animosity from him towards me started when I started dating the “first real girlfriend” I was supposed to be trying to see if she was interested in him. I don’t know their history very well, but I know he didn’t like it. Skipping ahead a few years and several strained falling-outs and rekindlings and he was my first roommate. There’s so much bloat to the story between us that it’s easier to just say it was not a healthy friendship and he could be a very negative person when things didn’t go his way. This type of negativity was encouraged due to me still recovering from the aftermath of my “serious relationship”, so it was a vicious cycle of negativity that took me until 22 to get rid of.
This type of friendship is vicious and angry in the most subtle of ways and you don’t immediately realize what’s happening. I didn’t until we had another fight that resulted in not being friends (again, for like the eighth time in nine years). I recently heard a rumor that he thinks I peed on his stuff. Maybe I should have! Anyway, “toxic” is the word people are most fond of using to describe these friendships, but it’s fitting. I thought he was my best friend, but really he was my only friend at the time. When I started branching out, I noticed the negative nature. I cut it out. I felt better.
Finally, the passing friendships. These are fun because everyone has them. They’re the people you follow on Twitter, the Snapchats you view, and the Instagram photos you like. You might grab lunch with them or meet up with them for movies, or you might only communicate through memes or mutual interests via social media. There’s nothing wrong with these friendships. They’re just not what I expected to have at 24. I’m very active on social media and it’s always nice to have someone, somewhere chime in about something we’re both into, but color me surprised to hit 24 and realize I largely only hang out with people from work, my roommate, and my roommate’s girlfriend. It’s increasingly more difficult to coordinate plans as I’ve gotten older due to schedule conflicts and our own personal lives. My high school friends are having kids, getting married, and buying houses, so I can’t really blame them for not being able to make the 10:30PM showing of Spider-Man: Homecoming on a Thursday night.
It sucks to know you’ve grown apart from your friends, and depending on the circumstances, it can feel like you’re not able to measure up. I’m not even close to having kids, let alone getting married, and my credit score, something I never imagined I’d have to deal with, is nowhere capable of buying a house. The takeaway here is that people are going to grow apart and there’s not always a perfect day to hang out, so it makes those rare occasions where everything falls into place something to cherish. I’ve been consistently surprised at how much fun I can have ordering a pizza and watching a movie among friends.
Sure, friendships are hard to maintain when you have your own shit going on. They require effort. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve slowly learned where my effort is best suited. I’m not perfect at it, and I still reach out to people I’ve drifted away from, but it’s a work in progress.
A) Comfortable friendships can be misleading, as there are things you shouldn’t get used to.
B) Constant negativity can fool you into thinking what’s happening is normal, so it’s important to branch out every so often.
C) It’s never going to be easy to keep people together, but I’ve found that it’s often worth it to reach out to friends you haven’t seen in a while. Out of sight, out of mind isn’t a great mindset.
Mental Illness is No Joke
This one is a little difficult to address. You risk being called a liar, being accused of wanting attention, and not being taken seriously. To be completely honest, I refused to believe in my own mental illness almost from the moment I received the diagnosis. When you hear Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) or Bipolar disorder today, it brings to mind those jokes you see in comedies like “sorry my ADD/ADHD is acting up” or those excuses people offer for being irritable on any given day “I’m just bipolar”. It’s kind of frustrating. With sites like Tumblr and ThoughtCatalog actively encouraging self-diagnosis, it makes me feel like maybe it’s only a big deal because I secretly wanted attention. I know that’s not the case, but the doubt is there. With a family history of mental illness, I grew to accept it as reality as I got older. The only people I could comfortably confide in were my grandparents, my mother, and my cousins. But it wasn’t enough. For every conversation I had with my mom about how badly I was struggling, there were ten times as many comments at school or online completely dismissing how I was feeling and labeling me as an attention-seeking brat. Sticking to the three example format, here’s some of the comments that have stuck with me.
“Did you take your pills today?” When you’re 8 years old and have to report to the office twice a day to have the nurse give you your medication, it leaves behind a kind of animosity towards that question. It’s a public school, and somehow, everyone always found out at each school I attended. If I laughed out of turn, my social studies teacher would ask “AJ, have you had your pills today?”. If I was having fun during something trivial like classwork or lunch, kids who’ve heard my teachers ask if I had taken medication would ask me if I was off my pills. That question was always lingering over my head, to the point where I’d be doing something and would have to ask myself if I was being too much. This lasted until high school, where a turn of events in my personal life led to me living with my grandparents, who made a deal with me that if I kept my grades up, I could stop taking my medicine. I jumped at the chance. I stopped taking medication completely at 16, my junior year.
That particular question was my first introduction to social normalities. Whenever I was being anything other than what was expected of me, I was asked if everything was okay, if I had taken medication meant to make me normal. In essence, social norms are nonsense.
“Do you have any pills?” This was new to me. For years, I’d been asked if I had taken my meds by so many people, that when my friends and peers started asking me if I had any pills I could give them, I was thrown off. Why would anyone want what I was forced to take? Did they like feeling as if they were a partial passenger in their own head? It turns out one of the medications I’d been prescribed was Adderall or whatever equivalent they had me on that year. It made me feel like a zombie, like I was just sort of coasting by, enjoying the view. I don’t know for sure what it does for people that don’t need it, but movies and Twitter jokes let me know it’s something to do with hyper-focus and determination. A little different than the imaginary weight I felt on my whole person when I had to take it. I grew resentful of medication, and by association, anything that affected my mental state. This stuck with me for a long time and it affected my relationships and friendships whenever they’d be into drugs or alcohol. It’s only recently this has let up enough that I’ll enjoy a few drinks here and there. I’ll likely never do drugs recreationally, but am generally okay with being around weed in particular. I hate being asked if I want it though.
Being asked this question is where I realized how easy it could be to be insensitive towards what someone else is going through. How could my friends know I hated having to wake up and eat pills for breakfast? Why would I tell them I used to hide pills in the air vents or spit them out when my mom wasn’t looking? They just wanted to have fun. This sounds depressing, but it’s a reality. You’re not always immediately aware of someone else’s problems.
“Try not to get so worked up.” Simple, right? It’s not always a big deal. There’s a variety of ways to say this to someone, and we do it every day. I say it. It’s normal. I have trouble with irritability, but not in the sense that I have pet peeves and don’t like when people chew with their mouths open (though I really don’t like that). I have trouble in the sense that I will focus on certain things, ranging from ambient noise to something that even I’m doing, right up until I want to scream in anger. It can ruin my day. I am actively telling myself “it’s fine, just breathe” so much that it’s a passive habit. People love to chalk this up to OCD or ADD or whatever their preferred flavor of the day is, but for me it’s just a part of me I doubt I’ll ever have full control over. I’ve gotten into dumb arguments and have ruined friendships, upset my mother, and risked my job due to the side effects of wherever this hypersensitivity is stemming from. It gives way to irrational and impulsive actions in a desperate attempt to get past whatever is getting under my skin. Make no mistake, I am aware of how this sounds. Have you ever tried to talk to someone about something like this? “Hi, my name is Alex. Your involuntary sniffling is getting so ridiculously on my nerves that I want to break my hand on the nearest punchable object. But if you give me like 20 minutes, everything will be fine. Maybe.” Not a great bonding experience. I do have a decent handle on this and have developed certain methods to alleviate some of the distress. I’m able to move through my day, but it’s always there.
These passing comments are rarely meant maliciously, and often come from friends just trying to calm me down if I’m heated about something. I always appreciate the sentiment, and am never bitter or angry at them for not understanding. I’ve just come to realize that there are certain things that you can’t explain to someone that doesn’t know where you’re coming from. At least not without fear of being laughed at. Sometimes, you have to help yourself.
I have plenty of these examples, but I think the bullet point really illustrates my meaning: mental illness is no joke. Depression and chemical imbalances and more are all very real. I didn’t always believe, but who wants to believe they may not always have control over themselves? When half the internet is capitalizing on and romanticizing something you struggle with every day and the other half is laughing at the concept, it’s easy to not take mental illness seriously.
A) Social norms are very real, and they can eat my shorts. What’s normal isn’t always healthy, and it’s important to be aware that you have to do what’s best for your health. Even if that means standing apart from what people expect of you.
B) You’re never going to have the full story, and people are almost always going to make assumptions. These assumptions will be based on stereotypes and generalizations. It’s up to you to figure out how to field it, and whether you want to take the time to understand.
C) You won’t always be able to understand what someone is going through, and what works for you may not work for someone else.
In the End
I don’t know what I was expecting to be at 24. I used to compare myself to my grandparents and my mom as a sort of endgame goal. That’s not really feasible in my experience. My mom was married and pregnant by 21. My grandparents were married by 17 and 16. I don’t really know what the takeaway is from their stories, and it turns out it’s difficult to concretely universally define what it is to be an adult. At 24, for me, being an adult is learning from your experiences and moving forward.
Too long, don’t read: life experience and generic advice from your pal AJ. It does sound generic, I know that. But it took real time and effort to get to where I am and to learn from what I’ve been through. I still have a long way to go, and I’m sure it’s going to take me even more time to learn from whatever happens in the future, but I hope that sharing what I’ve picked up, however generic is sounds, is helpful for you, too.
Happy birthday to me.
-Alex
