5 Reasons You Don't Miss Your 20s When They're Over
People tend to look back on their youth with rose colored glasses, which is fine because if you lived your life without the ability to filter out every little shitty thing that happened to you, you'd go insane. But there is this weird thing with your early 20s, where Hollywood portrays them as the fastest, wildest, road-trippingest years of your life ... but in the real world it's the age when suicide rates suddenly double.
So which is it? Are these the years everyone looks back on fondly? Or some of the hardest times of your life? Well, I've been out of my 20s for nearly a decade and I gotta say, that period when TV says you should be carefree and playing wacky fraternity pranks on your buds? From my experience, those rose colored glasses just show me rose colored turds. Mainly because ...
#5. You're in the Last Stages of Cool
Let's take music as an example.
In high school, music isn't just a matter of personal preference, it defines what social team you're on. In my school, the rednecks listened to country, the tough guys listened to metal, the weird kids had the alternative stuff. What came out of people's car speakers was as important as the clothes they wore, or the slang they used. And each group was grading how "cool" an outsider was by whether they liked that same music.
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"Have you guys heard the new Creed son- OH GOD, WHY DID YOU STAB ME?"
Then at some point in your 20s, you get to experience the bitchslap realization that the music you loved as a teenager was specifically designed to appeal to teenagers. And man, I'm telling you, it happens all at once. You'll flip around the radio or turn on one of the MTV channels that still plays music, and suddenly it hits you that what you're hearing is just absolute shit.
It's because you've entered a state of adulthood that just isn't represented in music at all. You'll know when you've reached it because the music designed for teenagers now seems shallow and ridiculous, the stuff that's supposed to be "dark" and "soulful" suddenly sounds laughable and trite. Suddenly, every band is an inferior ripoff of something awesome you heard when you were 15. It's the reason your parents thought the same thing about your music when you were that age.
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"Have you guys heard the new ABBA so- PUNCHING MY FACE IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE!"
So, you still have a part of you that wants to declare membership to a social group by liking their music, but now you don't like that group's music and, in fact, suspect that the music they're listening to now is bullshit.
But the music is just a symptom. Because now you look at the 16-year-old kids that, if you were 16, would be the kids you would hang around with, and suddenly see nothing cool about them.
But you're also not old, you're certainly not ready to turn into your Dad, proudly listening to Skynyrd in the garage and drunkenly proclaiming it to be the last "real" music ever made. You're still more likely to play pranks at Halloween than chase pranksters off your lawn. You're on a seesaw that straddles teenager and adulthood.
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Yep, you look totally natural, buddy.
And it's the same with everything that could be used to define you. Like clothes. If you try to dress in whatever teenage fad is in style that month, you look like a creepy old guy who's desperately trying to look cool. If you resign yourself to dressing like what catalogs say adults should look like, you've just kissed goodbye any chance that you'll ever be cool again. This is why you go to a college campus and half the people just wear their pajamas to class. They're out of ideas.
When you get into your 30s, you get a little more resigned about this stuff -- you've reached the point where if you show up at a Justin Bieber concert, girls start ducking away and dialing three digits on their cell phones. There is no maintaining the illusion that you're young and cool. I've got to say, it feels good to finally let go of it. But damn the actual act of letting go is hard.
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#4. Your Ego Gets Punched in the Dick
A guy I went to college with -- we'll call him Meatneck Flabalanche -- was known in high school as the class clown. He was exactly the same as the one in your school: loud, brash, would literally eat a live child if it made eyes turn his way.
The very first day in college, he started his routine in class, jumping in with "that's what she said!" when the professor said anything that left even the tiniest opening, using the lab's beakers like props from a Carrot Top show, you get the idea. Lighting his farts.
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You know the type.
Anyway, that lasted about a minute and a half before the teacher finally had enough and just flat-out stopped her class and addressed him directly. "I'm assuming this is your first year of college so I'm going to give you exactly five minutes' worth of leeway. The next time you interrupt my class for any reason, you won't be attending it." And that was it. Shut down on the spot. As far as the school was concerned, that was his last trip to the "look at me" well ... because in college, there is no trip to the principal's office. Get kicked out of enough classes, and they boot your ass completely out of school. And all at once, there was no venue for the show this guy had spent his entire childhood perfecting.
This kind of thing winds up being the first in a long line of mindfuck realities that completely change how you view high school when you look back on it. High school is hard while you're there -- those are tough-ass years. But once you're out, you look back and realize that everything about the system was built to make it easier to succeed. Society needs you to get that diploma, and will do everything it can to drag you across the finish line. You were praised for getting a good score on a test. If you win a big game, you're revered. Hell, most schools even give out awards for perfect attendance.
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You couldn't do math for fuck, but you did show up. Good job, Jennifer!
Then when you graduate, all of that gets stuffed into a cannon and shot into the sun. That is literally the last time society forces success on you. Suddenly it's, "We don't give a shit whether you succeed or not. If you mess up this (job/degree/relationship) there are a million people waiting in line behind you ready to take it."
You're quickly met with the dead, limp reality of, "All that ego-stroking? Yeah, that was bullshit we do to grease your way through your training period. Now you've been trained. Here's your shovel, help us move this shit pile from here to there." And though you may turn out to be the best shit shoveler who ever shoveled some shit, there's not likely to be any celebration for your shit technique and impeccable shit ethic. You did what you were paid to do. "Come back tomorrow and do it some more, or we'll get somebody else."
This starts all over again when you start your career, when suddenly everything you accomplished in the classroom up to that point again counts for jack shit. You're the new guy, there's one spot you can be promoted to, and there are six guys in line to get it who've all been working there since the '90s. And until they hire someone else, you will always be known as "the new guy." I used to work as the computer guy for an auto dealership, and we had the same "new guy" for two years before they hired some newer guy (who, by the way, was using his bachelor's degree in psychology to change oil for a living). To a 20-something, it just seems like more arbitrary unfairness and bullying.
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"This is bullshit! It's age discrimination!"
Your perspective changes right around the first time you are old enough to have worked at a place for a while and seen a 20-something walk in the door, thinking his grades automatically earn him a salary higher than that of people who actually know what the hell they're doing. You chuckle and/or cringe at their sense of entitlement and realize, "Wait a second! Ten years ago that was me." And then you wonder how the other people in the office tolerated you.
I guess that's when you know you've gotten past it: the embarrassment. Just remembering how at that age you were positive that you had everything locked down and figured out. You figured you were educated and smart and awesome and there wasn't much left to learn. I wouldn't live through that again if I were forced at gunpoint by time-traveling Time Rapists.
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"So who's up for some rape? Don't answer that, it kills the point."
#3. It's the Worst Dating of Your Life
This is the time of your life when you're most desperate to meet a girl or a guy, and it's the absolute worse time to actually do it.
Let's face it, besides school, parties and bars, there aren't a lot of avenues you can take to meet other single people. The reason is because it's much easier to get to know someone in a group setting before handing them your phone number and pointing out that if you add a letter, it spells out "FREE DICK." In college you have that group/school setting, but as anyone who is paying tens of thousands of dollars for a serious education can tell you, it's not exactly the "get drunk and fuck" atmosphere that the old National Lampoon movies make it out to be. People are tied up in trying to balance studying with a part-time job so they can survive. The last thing they have time for is a relationship that may or may not last through the end of the year.
So you end up latching on to whatever short term relationship you can get your hands on, just to fight the loneliness. And when that goes sour, you'll move on to the next, not fully realizing that committing to the chick you met by doing jello shots out of her cleavage probably isn't going to be the long term romantic connection you've been searching for.
And then when you do meet the one you think is your soul mate, you realize it's like meeting a girl at the airport. The odds that both of you are planning to wind up in the same place after graduation is astronomically small. He plans to move wherever a job opens up, she intends to go to grad school in Arizona. If you're not the same age, one of you will be in school for a year or more after the other has moved on.
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Or longer.
And then there's the fact that at 20, everyone is in transition. This is why you go to a college campus and the girl who was prom queen two years ago now has green hair, and the minister's kid has dedicated his life to his freestyle rap skills. Everybody's trying on personalities like outfits in an '80s movie dressing room montage. The girl you fell in love with, is that actually her, or is that one of the personalities she's testing out? And are you the same person you'll be five years later?
The worst relationship horror stories I've ever heard have all come from this age group. It's a terrible hit and miss process, done at a time when you're most vulnerable and emotionally unstable. And every time you bounce back from a bad relationship and give another try, you're picking up a set of dice made out of your own balls.
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"I'm here for our date, you blind fucking consumer. Let's talk about racism in Pig Latin."
I'm 27 years old. Definitely feeling/experiencing all of these in some form or another.
ReplyThe music thing-I came to terms with the fact that I was never cool years ago, but it shocks me when I hear some top 40 song on the radio and want to start being all, "This music sucks!" I REALLY don't want to turn into that person, but it seems inevitable, and that saddens me.
Excellent article. Sad to read, but spot on.
My parents bought my current truck at 19 (my shoulders grew out all the way, and my legs grew even more, so I didn't fit in my old one). I showed up at the dealership before them b/c I was coming from somewhere else, and the salesman started showing me around.
ReplyI also had a coworker think I was working minimum wage food service at 27, so I guess that says something, hopefully only about how mature I look.
This will definitely be the last Cheese article I ever read. I am tired of his whiney, crying, broad generalizations. Not everyone experienced life as a poor, underemployed, barely educated, self conscious little s**t with no friends, trying desperately to fit in and be accepted. Cheese is as far away from being an alpha male as is humanely possible. c**t
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesSo if you already know what hes going to write about why do you bother reading it? And while some people did not, many others did. So how about you give your life sob story, and we get somebody who will degrade it down to you being a worthless piece of shit? And if you don't have one and your life has been perfect without any of the issues your so self righteously damning as whiny then, 1: your lying because EVERYBODY deals with these issues in their twenty's or otherwise. And 2: your an insensitive prick. Like i said if you don't like john cheese's previous articles what made you think you'd like this one? Go read about privaleged, rich, overeducated dickheads who lord their perfect live over others. Seems more to your taste.
...........Just........so many f*****g questions.......he dident even mention being poor in this article, and NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A MOTHER f*****g ALPHA MALE........cunt
qazjin, you sir, are a penis.
There's really nothing else to be said on the matter.
Plenty of truth here... but why is it titled "...Your 20s" when it only talks about the first couple of years of your 20s? At 27, pretty much everything in here is a distant memory...
ReplyJust my 2 cents, but high school was the shittiest age by far. The late teens/early 20s years were liberating; with no parents on your dick 24/7 and you can manage your own time and life, it made things much more enjoyable. I never appreciated authority, but probably because my parents were the SS to my lowly jew equivalent self. I left motivated and driven...
ReplySo here I am, almost done with my teenage years (which sucked way more than they were built up to be), hoping that instead my twenties could be the "best years of my life". Now, by about age 16, most hope of this prospect was gone, but this article was the nail in the coffin.
ReplyWhat's the message here? That there are no golden years? No high point in life and then a slow decline with blips of happiness along the way? Instead, it's just a downward spiral? Maybe I missed it, and maybe I'm just another dumb teenager out of the thousands, but this article is depressing as hell.
It's not a downward spiral at all. It's about the fact that @20, suddenly there are no rules, but people are still trying to sell you on the fact that there are. So it takes about 10 years getting used to, when they could have just told you in the first place.
The message here is that it's a difficult path for many people because of the sudden changes thrown at you all at once.... And it's not easy in this shit-ass era we're living in now. You have all of the responsibilities of being an adult, but nobody treating you as one. Also, you're trying to figure out who you want to be and what you want to do while struggling to get your "adult life" started. As I said in other posts, the most important thing is being constantly aware of what's going on with you and around you, so you can learn and grow from the s**t thrown at you. It's not ALL horrible, it's just a very demanding transition period in life. The best thing to do is pay attention to your gut instincts, as that is often the best guide post to finding happiness. Work toward finding a good balance between work, home and social life, and you'll be heading in the right direction. Oh, and don't forget... Keep in mind that this IS a comedy site! Re-read the article with the mind-set that you're seeing a comedian performing a live show... Then maybe you'll better understand the message.
My husband got me hooked on this site, and I'm glad he did if for no other reason than being able to enjoy these wonderful gems that John Cheese provides for us!
ReplyFor those of you that haven't experienced what he's writing about, stop bitchinmoaning about the article! Instead, please go obtain a goat or other sacrificial animal, take it to an altar (build one if you have to), and provide it as a gift to any and all deities within your belief system as thanks for not having to endure the aforementioned clusterfuck that the vast majority of us have lived through on at least some level. Count yourself as blessed, and move along.... Nothing to see here....
That's a really sweet story. :D
Except the Goat part. I used to love my naiighbor's pet Goat :'(
To be fair, if I were 20 and my 18-year old friend would start bringing 14-year-olds, I would not continue to see this person. I'd sit in a coffee shop on my own. With a book. Unless it's my little brother, in which case: to the tree house! It's not so hard, really.
ReplyAwesome. =:D
To a person in the deepest swathes of 24, thanks. You've definitely given me plenty to wake up to tomorrow. I guess I'll just drop out of university, break up with my boyfriend and keep working in my dumb ass hotel bar/waiter/cleaner/whipping boy job til my music taste catches up with my diminishing fashion sensibility.
ReplyYou're missing the point of the aricle.... You can't learn from life unless you live it. I'm much more content in life now at 31 than I have been since being a little kid without a care in the world. It's simply because I lived through the s**t life threw at me, learned about how the world around me works, figured out the best ways for me to navigate it through mostly trial-and-error (lots of error....), and in so doing I carved out my niche that I am quite happy and content with. Yeah, the process sucked, and I'm glad my 20's are over.... But I also appreciate the fact that if I didn't survive through life's decade-long mind-fuck (which, by the way, won't even give you the courtesy of using KY) I would still be floundering around, trying to learn the secrets of happiness from articles on the Internet.
I don't know about saladbap but my first years were shit! Being 21 hasn't let up and I've been through stuff people in their 80s haven't even heard of. I like the music I like and don't care about who likes it, I don't let people treat me like a child unless I want to (I have a high IQ and will make someone feel like fools), I never looked for the bottle of happiness like other people my age and I've been working since I was ten. I'm not saying I was happy or never made mistakes but not every teen or 20 year old is wandering around clueless. Life deals you crap and you either deal with it or you fold under pressure but the point is, being in your 20s does kinda suck... I really wanna be 30.
I knew this article spoke the truth before even beginning to read it. As soon as I turned 30 I let go a big 'thank you'. What a piece of s**t decade.
ReplyThe only thing I didn't relate to was music. When I was in my teenage/20s I always thought the music people my age listened to was very shitty. Strangely, now I love the same Dance music I used to hate, and I know no other 33 year old like me who does.
Turning 21 tomorrow. I say yes to this article.
ReplyI'll be 26 in a couple of weeks, and I can say that everything in this article is 100% true. It's also reassuring. Does anyone know how to untie a noose? jk.
ReplyIf you tied it, you can untie it.
much like most the important decisions you will make... take precaution and pull out
nothing is more true than the awkwardness of picking up your pal 2 yrs younger, who just so happens to be with his pal 2 yrs younger who just so happens to be with a couple girls 2 yrs younger... Of course now I'm 24, making my hypothetical pal 22 and his hypothetical pal 20 and those hypothetical girls 18... and just like that all is right with the world again. Except HOLY s**t i'm 24 now.
ReplyI think that you're my favorite writer on this site because you always write stuff that I relate to. Here I've been puzzling about, what am I doing wrong, and you nailed it in 5 bullets. Way to go, and thank you! I'll think about that instead of weeping or drinking more coffee whenever my clients don't show up or I go on FB to compare myself with my married girlfriends. Or maybe start writing for you guys! :-D Happy holidays!
ReplyHell yes. So true
ReplyYour articles are too true, John.
ReplyThere is a guy who yells it all in your face - he's called Dad. And the music thing - WTF? I've been listening to jazz, swing, rock, latinno and classical since I was 3 years old and that's not even half of it. What, didn't your parents ever try to teach you something? And so what if you have younger friends? It's not like they're something less than you - you just don't drink alcohol together until they're finally legal too and you show them the best pubs in town. And not all older people are stuk ups - I've had people 20 or more years older than me listen to what I have to say and agree with me if I was right since I was 13. If your twenties are like what it says in that article - you FAIL. Sorry for any errors I might have made my English is not perfect. And sorry if you find this comment too offensive.
Reply Hide All See All 10 RepliesOk you did notice this is cracked right? Its supposed to be funny, not serious. I had great parents, and listen to lots and lots of differnt music and all that jazz your talking about. Only differnce is I can look at this and laugh. I thought that was the point, but I guess you missed it..
Yeah maybe the point was for it to be funny but it isn't. And if you don't like my comment - ignore it!
Alia- then you are the exception. Cheese is talking about whats typical. ie- experienced by the majority of people. There will always be exceptions.
I'm guessing you're - what - 20 tops, Alia?
Amirite?
Those older people nodded and agreed to shut you up.
I can't ignore your comment because you wrote it on a public forum with the expectation that it will be read by others. That's what happened, and now people are calling you out for being a pompous a*****e with no sense of humor. Deal with it.
Alia..I had been toying with the idea of registering a cracked account for quite a while..but did not know if I really needed one.. So I'm thanking you for making such a douchey comment, because it convinced me I did need one..to dislike comments like yours..you "FAIL" as you put it. John Cheese your articles are class !
Your Dad should have told you to shut your whore mouth.
It's obvious Alia is not from America even before you get to the bottom where he says "my English is not perfect." Look what he describes: family usefulness, social harmony, cultural awareness.
It's not offensive, we're just jealous.
if you don't like Cheese, ignore his articles duh
I actually remember the moment I had the music realization. A friend and I was listening to the numa numa song one afternoon tapping our toes and just acting up. Then all of a sudden I had this thought and said to him. ah crap man us 10 years ago would be kicking our asses right now lol..we were in our late 20's at the time.
ReplyEh, I'll be 26 in a month and my 20s aren't going that bad. I'm thinking I had more of a crash course of all of this crammed into the 18-19 age range. I feel pretty much like I'm 30 now. Maybe it's because I'm with a 33 y/o and I'm on the same page with him and we have a 2 1/2 y/o boy now.
ReplySome people grow up faster than others, due to circumstances or experiences.
dumb article
ReplyI dunno - I'm only 18 and this article spoke to me.