What do I need to know to be a Proper Grown Up?

[Mr. Tea]

Oh - and on that tip, David Starkey and Paxman both sport a gold ring with a red gem upon their pinky - what is this?? Co-incidence or something I can look into, significant or only connect?

Starkey was given his Ring by Gil-galad before he went off to fight in the Last Alliance and Paxman's Ring was bestowed on him by Cirdan when Paxman appeared in a ship out of the West to combat the growing power of Sauron.

 

[baboon2004]

i know some "successful" PGUs who are miserable, selling their soul to some horrible corporation because they are financially overextended with huge mortgage, kids' college tuition ($50k per year for top schools in the states!), summer house rentals, multiple cars, wife who has to have all the latest fashions every season, etc. in this economy, many are also worried about losing their high-paying jobs, cutthroat office politics, depressed about hair loss, need viagra (that's if the wife still gives him any at all anymore, LOL!), etc.

PGU, followed closely by mid-life crisis!!

yep, i think this is a correct analysis. You ahve to take the practical things from being a PGU, but refuse it as a lifestyle. Who the hell wants to be 'mature', when maturity connotes, well, selling one's soul and 'accepting things you can't change'? What a lifeless cop-out.

 

[alex]

basically you should have a successful job, but with no mortgage, kids, wife or similar peice of shit drain on your income?

 

[you]

Starkey was given his Ring by Gil-galad before he went off to fight in the Last Alliance and Paxman's Ring was bestowed on him by Cirdan when Paxman appeared in a ship out of the West to combat the growing power of Sauron.

Ha, that's mental! I'd always thought if Paxman was going to be given anything for his bravery it would be from Olwë?!?!

 

[Mr. Tea]

Ha, that's mental! I'd always thought if Paxman was going to be given anything for his bravery it would be from Olwë?!?!

Way, WAY out-nerded.

Edit: would that be Olwë Craner?

 

[Leo]

basically you should have a successful job, but with no mortgage, kids, wife or similar peice of shit drain on your income?

i guess my point was i know some people who, in an effort to "keep up with the joneses" and be what they think society considers a PGU, get way overextended. it's perfectly possible to live a happy life with mortgage, kids, wife, etc. well, maybe not the wife bit. ;-)

 

[Mr. Tea]

it's perfectly possible to live a happy life with mortgage, kids, wife, etc. well, maybe not the wife bit. ;-)

Oh man, you are in SO much shit if she uses your computer and happens to see the last few pages you've viewed...and posted on...may I suggest an emergency Delete Recent History?

 

[Leo]

Oh man, you are in SO much shit if she uses your computer and happens to see the last few pages you've viewed...and posted on...may I suggest an emergency Delete Recent History?

ha, thanks for looking out for me!! she regularly accuses me of being a "cheeky monkey" (must be a british thing), so i think i'm safe.

 

[hint]

What about viewing / buying a second hand car? Is there a Proper Grown-Up way to do this?

I went to see one last week, opened up the bonnet and then realised I had no idea what I was doing.

The only thing I could remember that someone once told me was checking for 4 matching tyres. If they're different brands, it's more likely that the rest of the car hasn't been cared for apparently.

 

[you]

Ha, just get a decentish car with a full service history or ask the garage to renew it's MOT for you, that's pretty much it.

I totally played a car dealer and his manager at their own game when I got my car, will post it... maybe later.

 

[hint]

Ha, just get a decentish car with a full service history or ask the garage to renew it's MOT for you, that's pretty much it.

My current car is only 6 years old and had full service history. But it has ended up needing a whole new engine within a year of buying it, after a couple of ineffective but expensive repairs, so I'm a bit cautious!

I feel like I should be a bit more thorough when looking for a replacement. Are those AA / RAC checks worth the money?

 

[you]

what the vehicle inspections? they'd be good to avoid issues - If i needed to have a car data check i'd avoid it tbh, just find a garage with full history of repairs and owners.

 

[luka]

I've been trying to become a genuine grown up ever since I met you, Luke. Before that, in fact. Actually, as it happens, a few weeks before I met you I was more of a grown up than a few weeks after I met you. Basically, all of the various things I've tried, avoid doing, as they won't work, or don't work. Don't try to exist purely on Bulgarian wine and Gauloises. Don't stay in a permanent job fo years constantly applying for promotions. Don't join a political party. Don't learn to drive. Don't pontificate and pose with Jews in Hendon or Arabs in Kensington. Don't attend Latin Mass. Don't read Anthony Powell or Michael Oakeshott or The Federalist Papers. Don't listen to Sidney Bechet or Django Reinhardt. Don't hold fancy seafood parties. Don't hold fancy seafood parties to a soundtrack of Sidney Bechet or Django Reinhardt, while discussing Anthony Powell with a Jew from Hendon and some Arabs from Kensington. Don't take out any subscriptions to any magazines. Don't try to become a teacher, or a lawyer. None of these things work or even make you look like an adult. Somehow, for some reason, some people grow up and settle down with kids and family by 30 or 35 as if it's the easiest and most obvious thing in the world, and they're a class apart; those who then sustain this incredible winning streak through their whole lives are marvels of Western Civ. -- they are also the ones to set and exemplify a template, a template the rest of us vainly try to emulate or achieve, or (with difficulty/bloody defiance) ignore. I am one of the doomed aspirers. I always wanted to conform to the idea of adulthood -- I liked the idea of adulthood in that whole boozy-breathed, broadsheet-reading, complicated-love-life Mad Men sort of way before Mad Men was ever broadcast or conceived. Being a kid is good while it's happening, being a teenager is miserable and exciting in equal measure: but a 30-year old dressing like a teenager or going to rock festivals or earnestly discussing a new Sugababes song struck me, at 25, as being the most shit, most embarrassing thing possible --and that was just as the Noughties was getting into full-swing, and the 30-something teens were swinging their prams around Victoria Park and what have you. I'm not saying I was right, mind you: the bogus "adult" pose was equally absurd. I'm the sort of tragic loser who's been trying to conform for years and constantly falling short, or getting it wrong, or being exposed as a fraud or an eccentric or a dreamer or a drunk or odd or antisocial. I have had some heroic failures, but they are not the sort of thing you boast about. I am the classic entry-ist who mostly can't enter, or gets in only to get kicked out again as soon as anybody recognises me. You don't even have the appetite to approach the door, Luka Vandross. I don't believe you are serious.

Incredible post. Breathtaking

 

[Mr. Tea]

That would look great as an adapted version of the Trainspotting poster that has adorned a zillion student bedrooms for the last quarter-century.

 

[craner]

I was 32 when I wrote that and in a lot of emotional pain.

 

[Corpsey]

I was 27 when this thread began - didn't have to worry so much about this sort of thing.

I don't feel remotely like a real adult. I can't drive. I don't understand taxes or mortgages or anything like that. I don't watch the news, I don't read a newspaper, I have very little idea of what's going on. I wear novelty simpsons t-shirts and nike trainers. I hate my job (are you supposed to like it by now?) No girlfriend, let alone a wife, let alone a baby.

Most of my friends are adults by now, in one way or the other. I think I would need somebody to pull me into it, really. No chance of becoming one by my own volition. Because it's crap, isn't it? Who wants to be an adult? I feel like feeling like an adult is a compensation for 1) not feeling young anymore and/or 2) having a baby that keeps you up all night and slowly saps away the last dregs of your already guttering youth.

 

[luka]

I don't know how serious I was about this thread in the first place, a passing whim probably, but I've certainly never given it another thought.

This stuff is completely out of my reach financially, by temperament and by intellect. So no point worrying about it. It's another species of creature that does these things.

 

[luka]

I live in dreamworld I didn't even notice there was anything outside it till I was about 20. And even since then the sense of anything beyond it has been vague and intermittent, barely impinging.

 

[craner]

In 2011 I was literally living in the ashes of my former life, which I had willfully set fire to. I rebuilt a moderately "adult" life on that scorched earth eventually, in the sense that I got a new job and bought a house and a car. It's a lot more possible (house) and necessary (car) to do this when you live in the provinces. The way that London is structured financially now is infantalising, like a massive playpen.

 

[craner]

The idea of "adulthood" does still hold a fascination for me. It's an even more urgent notion now, when you consider that the world's most powerful nation is ruled by a child.