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This summer, I tweeted:
My best friend just got engaged and into law school, and I got rip-roaring drunk from Friday to Sunday. To each his own, I guess.
— Sunday Scaries (@ScaryScaries) August 3, 2014
Meanwhile, me? I was busy text-flirting with the 21-year-old biscuit in the pro shop in between making bogey saves at a golf course that I could barely afford. I was more concerned about the golf pro’s opinion of my powder blue sweater vest than I was with the current state of my savings account (he loved the sweater vest, by the way).
When I take a step back and look at myself, it looks as if the best thing I have going for me right now is that black people think I look like Jason Sudeikis, and Jason Sudeikis is dating Olivia Wilde, which means I have an outside shot at dating Olivia Wilde. But, that seems overly optimistic and I’m still ridin’ solo. Luckily for me, my mental state has me riding solo in more of a Jason Derulo-sense as opposed to a Don Draper-drunk-leisure-driving-to-avoid-my-wife-sense.
But at this age, a lot of us face this overlying pressure. This urgency. This ambiguous feeling of what we’re “supposed” to be doing and where we’re “supposed” to be in life.
In Man Repeller’s recent “Is 21 The New 25?”, my internet girlfriend observed, “At 25 you can say you’re in your early 20s, you can still fuck up. You’re young. 26 is this very scary year where you’re technically in your late 20s. You don’t get the same sympathy. If you mess up at 26 it’s like, ‘Well that was a bad decision.'” She later goes on to say what I had been thinking the entire time I read the piece: “I guess I just hope 25 is the new 21 because if so, then I am not a fuck up.”
I, like a lot of you, am at that fragile not-mid-20s-but-not-late-20s age where I make enough money to live a bougie lifestyle, but not enough to throw a shotgun wedding should a 2 a.m. mistake turn into a newborn. I’m getting justifiably bitched at by my buddy to get measured for a groomsman suit, but I keep forgetting between my tee times and Lions games and happy hours. I’m an innocent man-child stuck in the limbo where half of my friends are snapchatting me mid-poop selfies while the other half are planning their weddings. And frankly? It’s kind of awesome.
The beauty of finding yourself in this gray area is that you get to enjoy it all. You get to be happy as hell for your engaged friends while not having the stress of planning a wedding. Your friends’ kids can think of you as the “cool” uncle before you head to the bar. You get to go to your buddy’s bachelor party and not have to answer to anyone when you come back smelling like cigars and strippers. You can buy yourself a new driver because a down payment on a home isn’t in the realm of possibility yet. You’re just figuring out your shit on a less life-defining scale.
The problem is that from when you hit high school to when you get married, people insist on telling you what path you’re supposed to take and where you’re supposed to be. It drives me insane to the point where I’m about to change my Instagram bio to “LiFe iS aBoUt ThE JouRneY, nOt ThE DeStInAtIoN!” to put out a YOLO vibe so people get off my back because they think I’m a lost cause. The fact of the matter is, there’s nowhere that you’re “supposed” to be and there’s nothing you’re “supposed” to be doing.
I have friends whose moms had them at 22 while my mom had me at 36. And hey, guess what? All of our moms are fuckin’ awesome and all of my friends turned out to be baller as hell. My parents met at 28, and, from the stories I’ve heard, they had a SHITLOAD of fun before my sister came along six years later.
At the end of the day, all you need to do is make sure your life trajectory emulates McConaughey in “Failure to Launch,” rather than Carell in “40-Year-Old Virgin.” Fuck, if we all had this shit figured out already, what would be left to have Scaries over? Just have to keep crushing it and see where the chips fall..
Originally posted on Sunday Scaries
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
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I needed this on a Monday after; I went on a two day bender bought a penguin suit (literal not a tux, halloween is gonna kickass) and my buddy got engaged.
I needed that too. After my (now ex) fiance left me a few months ago sometimes I need to know there are other people out there just like me that are doing the same shit.
Stay Classy.
What happened with the biscuit?
She went back to college and I’ve been spending my fall watching football and playing golf in solitude. Love college chicks.
my mental state has me riding solo in more of a Jason Derulo-sense as opposed to a Don Draper-drunk-leisure-driving-to-avoid-my-wife-sense.
Lost it. haha
“I’m an innocent man-child stuck in the limbo where half of my friends are snapchatting me mid-poop selfies while the other half are planning their weddings”
Wow. You are speaking to me. Cut right to the core. This is exactly where I’m at in life. Except I’m decidedly in my late 20’s. I think it bears mentioning that unless you’re the one doing the marrying and/or you have literally zero non married friends left that not a whole lot will change between 24 ish and 28, maybe even 29 if you’re really hanging on for dear life.
Technically…25 is your late twenties. 20,21,22,23,&24 is your prime – 25,26,27,28,29 over that hump.
What are you trying to prove, Dan? Stop cyber-bullying me about my age.
lol. This has DateLine NBC written all over it.
…technically, 24-26 would be mid 20’s right?
I’d even go 24-27 with 27 as the cutoff. There’s a big difference to still being just a few years out of school (or maybe still in law school, med school, etc.) and staring a 30. Big difference.