This is as close as I get to being an adult.
This morning whilst taking my entirely unceremonious wake up poop I had a moment of clarity; I am becoming an adult. What brought this about was that in my half awake state I had come up with a business idea. I won’t say what this idea is, because it’s brilliant and you’ll all steal it, but when thinking it through I started using business terminology and buzzwords, I considered where my revenue streams would be and concluded I’d be happy to sell my soul and pass on the personal data of the users of my business to unscrupulous advertising companies.
It hit me hard – I may be becoming an adult without having ever realised it. The other day I bought plates and napkins for when I go back home from university. I took time to buy these plates and I even thought about the aesthetics of the plates. I never considered for one moment that I had suddenly become a 30 year old middle class man flicking through the Argos catalogue in order to find the best dinner set to impress my guests, who I’m of course entertaining with a classy dinner party. I don’t know what wine I’ve bought, but it was expensive and I’ll wax lyrical about how it goes great with the roasted kale and lemon chicken I cooked. I’ll say things like don’t mind the mess, even though I spent the last 10 hours cleaning the entire house and airing my room out to remove the smell of lonely male shame.
I mean I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I’m probably supposed to right? I called my brother the other day to ask how he’s getting on and he had to go quickly because he was ‘entertaining’. He now watches Downton Abbey and his room smells like flowers. He’s getting married as well. This from the man who had his room painted blue because he’s a boy, who had adorned his window sill with his footballing trophies from his glory years and whose primary method of socialising was via Fifa and beer. This man, this macho-man who works in a gym, can down a pint in under 5 seconds and was, to me, always the pinnacle of masculinity has become thoroughly domesticated.
And then there’s me. Now I’ve always been an independent person; at home we buy our own food, cook our own meals, do our own washing, pay rent and in general just do our own thing. Our family is more like very good, well drilled house mates than a traditional household. When I came to University there was no difficult adjustment. I started budgeting immediately, doing regular shops and generally kept myself well ordered. This of course whilst my housemates were, quite literally, pissing up their own walls and buying £300 BB guns and then wondering why they couldn’t afford the rent. In my 3 years here I’ve probably phoned home no more than 15 times, despite being 250 miles away and having never gone back to visit apart from during the holidays. For me, being independent, responsible and mature was never hard. But being an adult? Now that’s something else entirely.
I’ve been looking at jobs, I know exactly what career path I want to go down, and I’ve considered whether or not I will move far away from home. America seems nice. So does Canada. Perhaps something simpler, like Hampshire. I’m fairly certain I don’t want to live in Horsham for the rest of my life, I have no desire to get stuck somewhere where I remember all the people from school. Don’t get me wrong, I still like these people and I’m always amazed at how much they’ve changed and progressed, but it feels to much like clinging to the past, like sticking to the old labels, like not getting on with life. I’ve come to Aberystwyth University and as far as an experience outside of my little southern suburban bubble goes I’ve loved every minute of it.
But what will it take for me to finally feel like an adult? Starting a career? Moving out? Moving far away and starting afresh? Getting married? Having children? Paying taxes? Dying?
Okay, so I know I’ve just listed the general milestones of life there but I can’t figure out when I’m supposed to feel grown up. All of the actual adults I know are all ‘adulty’. Everyone I know between 20 and 30 still feel like kids to me, imitating what they’ve seen on Netflix, following some general model of existence without having ever stopped to think about it.
It feels like American Football in the UK, of crowds chanting ‘defence! defence!’, screaming touchdown and generally acting all American. Its horrendously fake, like they’re merely imitating and pretending based on some generic baselines they’ve picked up from those two times they’ve watched the Super Bowl. It’s less sport and more just one massive performance, an insight into the British perception of American Football. But they consider themselves real players, real fans and feel some great synergy with their American counterparts, who if they ever witnessed this would almost feel insulted.
As Gary Neville would call it; A milky coffee.
I have friends who are still in bands, still playing music at shitty local live venues and still believe they’re going to make it. I have friends who are still having the same petty arguments with all their other friends that they had in secondary school, who it seems have taken life lessons from Eastenders and Jeremy Kyle. I also have friends who drink fine wines in nice dresses and sports jackets whilst lunching and having dinners with their friends, who post pictures on InstaTwat of their Latte Macchiato’s, they’re Herbalife tea and their free range organic chicken breast roasted in the tears of Nepalese orphans. Hell they even voted for the Tories.
In all of this I can’t decide who seems more like the adults and more like the children. I can’t decide where I fit in it all and at this point I’d rather not fit in at all. Or is that too hipster? I don’t have a poo-beard and waxed moustache and I don’t care about music and foreign films or that latest vintage shop in Brighton that sells gluten free hats.
Dinner parties, or as I like to call them; ‘lets-all-pretend-we-don’t-hate-each-other’ gatherings.
I don’t want to engage in any of this. I don’t want the dinner parties and the fake courtesy and friendship, with everyone competing to have the best sofa and hiding their Lidl shopping bags. I don’t want to debate the merit of one-nation Conservatism and austerity over a bottle of wine. I don’t like wine. All wine tastes like my grandmother smells. But equally at this point I’m kind of over the whole ‘student-thing’. I don’t want to spend my weekends getting sloshed on Jagerbombs and slut dropping to music that makes my liver vibrate. I’m bored of spending my weekday evenings watching whatever shit series is available on Netflix. I want to do things. Anything. I don’t know what things. In fact I’d say no to most things. I’m bored and don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.
Maybe it’ll all just fall into place when I get the job I’m aiming for. Or maybe when I find a nice girl and get hitched. Or maybe it’ll happen when we’ve popped out a kid and I have to get my shit together. Or maybe It’ll happen after that kids all grown up and I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I’m pretty sure I’ll be retired by that point and my decrepit arthritic body will be only just about capable of lifting my Robinsons squash to my lips whilst I watch Antiques Roadshow.
I don’t think I’ll ever feel like an adult, I’m not sure I want to but I know I’m certainly done with the student life. Maybe I finally understand what Jamie Cullum was singing about in Twentysomething.
I’m not sure what kind of life I want to live, what kind of person I want to be and what kind of people I want to spend my life with. But like this recent election I know that none of the options seem appealing and I may just have to choose the lesser of a few evils. Or be mad, retain my hopeless idealism and vote for a third party, which in real life is the equivalent of starting a new band or joining a football team with the serious belief that you’ll go somewhere with it. Maybe I’ll never be an adult by my own weird standards, or maybe I already am one by other peoples. I know what I want to do with my life but I have no idea how I want to do it.
At least the plates I bought are nice.
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