Has anyone else noticed this really weird infantilization thing going on among young adults lately? You have people in their 20s acting like they’re still 9 years old and it’s weird for anyone 2-4 years older to even speak to them.
Maybe it’s because I’m about to be 30 myself, but why does it seem like people are being trained to assume that adults older than 30 are predators in wait?
I spent my childhood feeling more comfortable around adults than peers. I spent my late teens and early-mid twenties spending a lot of time with my brother and his friends, who were all 6-8 years older. I’ve become good friends with some housemates that are the same age gap but reversed. There is a certain ease with people more my age but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy mixed age friendships.
I feel like people making so many friends online where you can cast such a heavy filter really messed with people. Like, just because they’re the wrong age for dating doesn’t mean we can be platonic. In real life its normal to hang out with different kinds of people.
Being online emphasizes theory over praxis and it means that opinions are untested. Telling someone to touch grass is challenging them to apply experimental rigor to their hypotheses. In this essay I will…