parties

[luckyhoss]

I've gone to a rash of parties lately that all get lumped into the same mental space in my head. That thing is "we think it's funny to pretend like we're adults, but oops, we actually are." They've been great parties, for sure, but I feel like everyone's a little "oh my god, wouldn't it be cuh-RAZY to have a fancy dress-up cocktail party, just

Comments

[lesion]

it'll be years before i throw a party where alcohol is provided again, as it's so infrequently reciprocated. there will always be people who come to a party expecting booze, then throw a BYOB party. i can't hate them, because i'm sure they just don't get it because they're not, well, grown-ups. but that sort of thing is emblematic of the larger gap in growing-up that plagues the 20s -- hopefully not the 30s, though. the other night, i was out with a few acquaintances, and three of us bought rounds for the table; when it got to person four, she just kind of sat there, all of us with empty drinks, continuing to chat until one of the others finally just got up and bought another round for everyone. irritating as hell. the tricky thing is that, if you're a grown-up, you know it's belittling to say, "hey, we all just got rounds; it's your turn," so you hold your tongue and end up enabling the other person's delayed development

[limaceous]

The grown up part of this is that you didn't yell, "Hey douchey, guess who's turn it is to buy drinks?!" So I would say the problem isn't so much that your friend was NOT grown up...but that YOU are one! You old ass oldster!

[lesion]

haha that's totally true. maybe grown-up social etiquette isn't the greatest!

[boilingbabies]

Your friend pulled a douchey move by accepting free drinks without buying a round herself. The big problem with rounds though, for me, is that I often don't want to drink that much. I'm a one, maybe two-drink person, so rounds often don't work. But in that case, I refuse to let people buy me drinks because I know I won't be reciprocating.

I'm kind of against the idea of sending someone a wedding gift when you didn't attend the wedding. The gift should be the fact that you just spared them $75 for the meal you would've eaten had you attended the wedding! But it also depends on how close you are with the person too. Close friends who live across the country should probably get gifts, but if it's just some random person you don't know well, then eh.

[dreamallday]

I hope no one thinks it is stupid that I want to get married and have babies in the next five years. If they do, they are wrong, because I'm pretty sure I'd be awesome at both.

Here's a list of "grown up" things I wish I had known were awesome and life-improving when I was 21.

1. Putting money into savings instead of the CC Club so you never need to worry about life emergencies getting in the way of life.
2. Eating vegetables at every meal
3. Sleeping regular hours, even on the weekend
4. Regular Exercise

Feel free to add to this list. I know there are a lot more that I'm missing, but it is 6:30 in the morning and I have to go to work.

[luckyhoss]

I definitely do not think that you getting married and having babies is stupid. I quite like it when people do. Personally, I grapple with whether I ever want to get legally married, or if I want to have kids, but I got no problem with others doing it. I am starting to think that I might be all about a commitment ceremony, even though I am in a hetero relationship, but I have to spend some time figuring out the pros and cons of it all. Not that I'm going to get married or whatever anytime soon. I could see it happening within the next 5 years though.

I like your grown-up list, especially 2 and 4! 3 is hard and I don't try it very often, but I definitely am more firm about my need for an appropriate amount of sleep, even if I am getting it at weird hours. I try to sock away a lot of money too, but sometimes I worry about it. I probably shouldn't worry - I bet I am one of the few people I know besides you with a 403B/401K and enough money packed away to buy a decent car with cash if need be.

[chocolatebark]

I wish I'd put more thought into compound interest when I was 21, and more vegetables and fruits would have been nice. Yeah.

[limaceous]

This is exactly how growing up happens...and I've seen it coming for years. Bre, who has perpetually been the first among us to wish she was a grown up, used to always want to throw "ironically" grown up parties. I even know people who got married, had kids and moved to the suburbs all under the guise that it was some sort of Brady Bunch roll play that was totally hilarious and satirical. Just like kids playing dress-up and house...it's all dress rehearsal for the real thing, and before you know it you're not pretending anymore. But I suppose pretending to be more grown up than you are is a lot better than pretending to be younger than you are!

[girlracer]

what? why would you pretend that you were the brady bunch? this all sounds so weird. are these people trying to pretend that they're NOT growing up?

[boilingbabies]

I'm pretty sure that pretending to be an adult until you accidentally just become one is what people have been doing for years -- just at way younger ages than us. People in our parents' generation pretended to be adults in their early twenties and soon enough they were adults, hosting fancy parties and backyard BBQs. At some point it stopped being novel.

It probably only feels natural for people who accidentally get pregnant or acquire super important jobs because then they have no choice but to grow up real quick.

[lesion]

i change my comment to "what mary said."