[Poll] Adulthood.

[thefourthvine]

Just like everyone else on the internet, I read Hyperbole and a Half's post on adulthood recently. As a result I have said, "Clean all the things?" to Best Beloved at least 76 times today. I expect I will be saying it regularly forever.

The post made me think about adulthood. And how I mostly do not get it.

When I was 10 and our washing machine exploded, turning our house into something more waterpark than domicile, my parents knew exactly what to do; they totally efficiently turned off the water, called the water company, and called the insurance people. All I could think of was to hold up my pants, which didn't want to stay on anymore once they'd taken on 40 pounds of water weight. I thought, I cannot wait until I am grown up and I know what to do.

When I was 17, I got my first flat tire, and of course I panicked and drove home on the rim. My father laughed and put on my spare tire and took my car out for a new tire, and then he explained why we don't drive on a flat. And I listened and looked forward to the day when I knew this stuff, when I just knew what to do.

When I was 25, Best Beloved and I bought our first house. I sat in the escrow office reading a stack of documents that I needed a ladder to get to the top of and thinking, Surely they will not let me actually buy part of this house. Surely they will notice I don't know what to do.

When I was 35, I sat in a wheelchair (despite my extremely reasonable protests) and carried a tiny baby home in my lap, and I couldn't believe it: they were letting me leave the hospital with the most important person in the world, and I still didn't know what to do.

Responsible adulthood did not happen to me. I never found a copy of the manual called What to Do. Instead, I have cobbled together a set of coping skills that let me fake being a responsible adult most of the time, while I stare in wonderment at the people around me who actually seem not only to have the manual but also to have read it and learned it to the point where they don't even need it anymore. And yet they never want to sell their old copy.

So, you know, now I'm wondering: how many of you know What to Do?

Poll #3627 Adulthood

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 786

View Respondents

Are you a responsible adult?

View Answers

Yes. Absolutely. I know What to Do.
19 (2.5%)

Basically. What other choice is there?
100 (12.9%)

No, but I'm faking it pretty well most days. I'm like the cubic zirconium of responsible adulthood.
205 (26.5%)

There are times when I can almost pretend I am. I'm the rhinestone of responsible adulthood.
317 (40.9%)

I've got the adult part covered! Responsibility is not really my thing.
69 (8.9%)

I've got the responsible part covered! Adulthood will come eventually.
40 (5.2%)

Neither an adult nor responsible, and, frankly, I'm enjoying it while I can.
25 (3.2%)

What responsible adult things do you do regularly?

View Answers

Personal hygiene! I am usually clean and wearing pants when I need to be wearing pants.
707 (90.2%)

Interpersonal hygiene! I can say I'm sorry when I am (and be sorry when I should be) and accept responsibility for my mistakes and not fly off the handle when I'm mad and stuff.
565 (72.1%)

Keep calm and carry on in emergencies!
516 (65.8%)

Sleep when I am supposed to and wake up when I need to!
313 (39.9%)

Clean ALL the things!
90 (11.5%)

Keep up with my finances in a way unlikely to lead to predictable disaster!
433 (55.2%)

Work!
545 (69.5%)

Kill insects bravely or co-exist with them happily!
560 (71.4%)

Keep a child alive and appropriately happy!
126 (16.1%)

Keep a pet alive (through its intended span) and appropriately happy!
440 (56.1%)

Keep myself and maybe others fed with real actual foods!
554 (70.7%)

Buy stuff I need!
606 (77.3%)

Get rid of stuff I don't need!
309 (39.4%)

Not buy stuff I can't afford or really shouldn't have!
368 (46.9%)

Go to the doctor and dentist without prompting and without anything falling off first!
279 (35.6%)

Paperwork! Bureaucracy loves me.
212 (27.0%)

Vote! Democracy loves me.
650 (82.9%)

Communicate! People love me.
287 (36.6%)

Own (or at least share with a bank) a residence or what have you!
212 (27.0%)

Advanced adulthood tasks!
113 (14.4%)

Something else that isn't on this poll, probably because the person who made it is not a real responsible adult!
79 (10.1%)

Let's go into more detail about cooking.

View Answers

Every single day, I cook three delicious meals from whole foods.
28 (3.6%)

Most days, I cook meals. They are tasty, or at least the people who eat them don't complain.
293 (37.3%)

I can cook meals. It just doesn't happen what you might call regularly.
333 (42.4%)

I can't cook meals, but I can cook things.
89 (11.3%)

I know how to call for delivery food.
20 (2.5%)

I know how to eat straight from the jar hovering over the sink.
11 (1.4%)

If someone else didn't feed me, I guess I wouldn't eat.
12 (1.5%)

Let's go into more detail about finances.

View Answers

I am like the god of fiscal responsibility. All my purchases are well-thought-out and carefully budgeted. I am not in debt and save extensively. Bankers everywhere want to perform oral sex on me.
53 (6.8%)

I am mostly fiscally responsible. I don't have that many impulse purchases! I don't run out of money! Bankers are willing to shake my hand.
358 (45.7%)

I have areas of difficulty, but I am surviving. Bankers may not look me in the eye, but they still give me most of my money.
277 (35.4%)

My finances are the monetary equivalent of that trash compactor from Star Wars. I avoid bankers, but I assume they want to punch me.
64 (8.2%)

Other.
31 (4.0%)

Let's go into more detail about cleaning ALL the things!

View Answers

Everything is always clean. If it isn't, I don't sleep until it is. The last time my residence was dirty, a natural disaster was in progress.
7 (0.9%)

My place is mostly clean, most of the time. I do all the major cleaning tasks on a regular basis, even.
113 (14.4%)

My home is mostly clean enough to prevent disease.
175 (22.3%)

Sometimes my place is clean. Sometimes it is not. It's all down to phases of the moon. (I may be a werewolf.)
112 (14.3%)

My place will be clean provided you give me 24 hours notice.
151 (19.2%)

It's more like 24 days notice, to be honest.
112 (14.3%)

There is no clean.
36 (4.6%)

I pay someone else to clean my place.
39 (5.0%)

Someone else cleans. I do not have to pay. I should probably thank that person right this minute.
32 (4.1%)

Something else.
8 (1.0%)

Let's talk about organization!

View Answers

I am so motherfucking organized that I can find YOUR shit.
78 (9.9%)

I can mostly find stuff.
298 (38.0%)

I know where at least one important document is, and I usually don't have to spend more than 15 minutes looking for things I use regularly.
253 (32.3%)

...It's around here somewhere. Um.
119 (15.2%)

I'm moving or have moved recently and thus am excused from having to be organized.
30 (3.8%)

Something else.
6 (0.8%)

When you fail at adulthood, what do you do?

View Answers

I don't. Not ever. For $700, you can take my seminar and you too will ALWAYS BE A WINNER at adulthood!
11 (1.4%)

Cry.
301 (38.4%)

Panic.
352 (45.0%)

Pretend. Failure? What failure?
405 (51.7%)

Call a friend or family member for help.
460 (58.7%)

Beat myself up, to the point where I am still regularly calling myself a dink for failures from past millennia.
388 (49.6%)

Ignore and repress until disaster strikes.
375 (47.9%)

Punish myself in a not-obvious way: run until I can't any more, say.
124 (15.8%)

Punish myself in a more obvious way: run until I barf, for example.
43 (5.5%)

When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
107 (13.7%)

Find someone else to blame.
52 (6.6%)

Distract myself. I NEED TO READ ALL THE LOLCATS. RIGHT NOW.
604 (77.1%)

Institute a brutal, iron-fist-style regimen to ensure it never happens again.
87 (11.1%)

Buy something.
233 (29.8%)

I have an even better coping technique! See the comments.
28 (3.6%)

Comments

[twincy]

[twincy]

Also: it is probably a bad sign that I ticked more boxes under "When you fail at adulthood, what do you do?" than under "What responsible adult things do you do regularly?"

[dragovianknight]

I just want to know when the "Clean all the things?" icons will start appearing on my flist.

[florahart]

I don't know, but I need one kind of a lot.

[likeaduck]

I am assuming that for 'meal' you mean values including 'sandwich'.

[zeborah]

If something includes starch of some kind (potatoes, rice, flour, etc), protein of some kind, and fruit-or-veg of some kind, then I call it a balanced meal, or at least as balanced as it's gonna get.

[weesaw]

my best coping technique is not leaving my bed for 24+ hours. it is usually accompanied by cartoons and ordering a pizza or two to last the weekend.

[thefourthvine]

Can I come not cope at your house?

[sdwolfpup]

Two items of note:

1. I used to have better personal hygiene before Puplet. Heh.

2. There are times I actually don't eat if AHH doesn't cook for me and we have nothing simple in the house. and yet I, too, got sent home with a tiny little person! I don't get it.

[thefourthvine]

I used to have better personal hygiene and better lots of other things before the earthling (like, it was easier to see the doctor and the dentist then; now I find myself weighing out my limited time: get the x-ray or spend time with BB?). But I was much less social before the earthling, who basically forces me to operate way beyond my personal tolerance for PEOPLE.

And I don't get how they just LET US HAVE BABIES. Like - not just ANY baby, either, but the incredible ones we got. I was so desperate to get out of the hospital, but I truly didn't think they'd let us get away with him.

[resonant]

I think "adulthood" is a myth. Or else it's a word for "competence, as seen from the outside."

Whereas "competence, as experienced from the inside," has this layer of "oh my god what do I do the water is going everywhere oh shit this is my fault I should have done something differently and now we're all going to diiiiiiiiie" while your body goes on mechanically finding the handle and turning it (perhaps in the wrong direction first) ...

The kidlet still occasionally has nightmares about the time she made a "ball of yarn" out of toilet paper and flushed it, and the toilet backed up and water was coming up between the stool and the floor, and I came in barefoot in my nightshirt and stuck my hand into the toilet and pulled the wad of paper out, because what else was there to do?

[starwatcher]

.
I think "adulthood" is a myth. Or else it's a word for "competence, as seen from the outside."

Best. Description. Ever.
.

[vector]

I am fiscally responsible mostly because my job gives me more money than I think someone with my level of responsible adulthood should reasonably be expected to deal with!

Also I checked "advanced adulthood tasks" even though I couldn't think of any specifically because I'm sure there's some in there somewhere.

[cypher]

You planned our vacation, and made reservations for...things! That is totally an advanced adulthood task.

With prizes!

[marginaliana]

My in-laws are coming tomorrow to stay for 10 days. The house must be clean by the time they arrive at 11pm. We have 3 floors. I am also planning to go see a museum exhibit about Muppets tomorrow, and watch Doctor Who. And eat. And maintain personal hygiene, etc.

Somehow all these things will happen. Right? :D?

[thefourthvine]

Probably! Although you will have to hope your in-laws don't look in the closets. Also, sleep may need to be deferred.

(Museum exhibit about MUPPETS? Where? TAKE NOTES AND PICTURES PLEASE.)

[lightgetsin]

*investigates to discover who else is as motherfucking organized as I am, to the point where I regularly find other people's shit over the internet, since this is probably a person I ought to kno*

[fox]

You know, there's a funny story I didn't remember until just now when you said that. But it'll be funnier to tell it this way: ask axiom_of_stripe about the time she couldn't find her gardening gloves. :-)

[zeborah]

My current Awesome Achievement of Awesomeness what I'm very proud of is, alas, something I can't really boast about without having people recoil in horror at the fact that it took so long to get around to it.

Eh well. Hopefully I've got a bunch more decades to either figure out this responsibility thing or die trying.

[pandarus]

I can promise you that I will not recoil in horror.

I broke my loo seat a year ago, and have been embarrassed to do anything about it.

...there are more things, but I shan't inflict them on you. Basically, I am in a nest of chaotic mess, and consider the fact that there are not any plates of mouldy food lying around to be the shining pinnacle of cleanliness. So GO TEAM YOU with having achieved your awesome thing, whatever it was!

[florahart]

I was torn between preventing disease and 24 days' notice. I decided that since it can be in decent enough shape for people not bringing a white glove in like three days, eh.

Coping technique*: Go to sleep. A lot. Also, eat nachos and milkshakes as primary food groups.

*for a value of coping technique which does not imply it's a good or useful coping technique.

[florahart]

Also, I do totally know what to do about flat tires, driving on ice, cooking dramas, and what to do about water being everywhere (except I did have a hell of a time working out what to do about it when where it was coming from was INSIDE THE WALL last winter--busted pipe and me sick as hell and doped up with steroids and opioids). My fails at adulthood are largely financial and household chore type things.

[mmeg]

I am nearly 30 and I still call my parents about once a month to ask them how to do some sort of basic adult thing. My younger brother, on the other hand, has taken to adulthood marvelously. Bizarrely he seems to be even better at it than my parents are.

[thefourthvine]

Enjoy your ability to call your parents! There are still times when I wish I could call my father and say, "Daddy, what do I DO?"

Also, are you 100% sure your younger brother is human? I am just asking.

[scy]

*giggles* I am that person in the office that when you are flailing around and saying 'WHERE IS THAT THING?!' I turn around and produce it for you immediately. I can also fix the printer, and I know where you're supposed to be, and where you actually are at this moment. (This means I keep track of EVERYTHING).

[pandarus]

::is speechless with shock and awe::

[foursweatervests]

I find it depressing that I am better at adulthood than most people I know. I'm 23. I shouldn't be this boring! /0\

[shinealightonme]

I will gladly take some of those extra adult-skills off your hands. No charge, even!

[stasia]

This is interesting - I've been a responsible adult for more years than I've been legally an adult. This seems to have happened concurrently with being seriously irresponsible for many years.

I found that having a child and then having to defend it whilst it was in Neonatal Intensive care is what made my switch flip from mostly irresponsible but capable of doing basic adulthood tasks to I Am Now An Adult.

Stasia

[thefourthvine]

No fair! I did the serious irresponsibility thing, and it didn't translate into any major responsibility on the flip side.

But, oh, I can see why having a baby in the NICU would make you grow up all in one leap. (I hope everything came out okay?) Just having a baby, period, has made me much more of an adult than I used to be.

[torachan]

I am really good at some areas and not at all good in others. For example, I am great at paying bills! The only times I've ever been late with a bill was when it didn't actually arrive in my mailbox or the time I accidentally sent one off without a stamp and it got sent back and was past the deadline by the time I resent it. I used to be really bad and bought a lot of stuff on credit cards, but then I stopped and now I don't feel the desire to buy things at all. In fact, I would like to have even fewer possessions than I do now. (I am good at getting rid of stuff, but my wife, not so much, so there is more stuff in the house than I would like.)

Also while I have no desire to have kids, I am confident that I could raise a child because I have a lot experience with kids and babies. I am less confident that I could raise a pet, because I'm not sure what to do there.

The one area of the house that gets cleaned a lot is the dishes. I do them frequently. But this is not because I want the sink to be clean and not have a pile of dishes, but because I hate having to wash a dish in order to eat, so I would rather they be all clean beforehand. The rest of the house, though... I have mopped maybe twice in ten years, if that. I vacuum every six weeks to two months or more. The shower curtain is currently half black with mold...

[seperis]

The shower curtain is currently half black with mold...

I always think that gives them character.

[esmenet]

Instead of actually asking people for help, I google things. With varying success. (As a teenager, I probably have more leeway.)

[lydiabell]

Yes, this! I'm afraid of people. Google, I can handle.

(OK, I guess I do sometimes ask chat or my flist/droll.)

[frostfire]

Ahahahahaha. So, I a) discovered that blog yesterday, b) spent much of last night reading it instead of sleeping, and c) spent most of today thinking about that post. Actually, my own latest post was mostly fueled by the Hyperbole post.

I am pretty awful at adulthood, in a lot of ways, and the post made me feel a little better about spending the bulk of this week maintaining my 100%-win stats on Freecell instead of doing adult-like things. Graduate school is actually pretty great for people who are bad at being adults, because not only can you put off many adult-ish things (real job, dressing professionally, having a real living space instead of a studio with a futon), you can excuse any neglect of real-adult responsibilities soooo easily. "That's okay!" my friends often say. "I understand why you took three weeks to email me back, an act which required five whole minutes of your time. You are busy with school." And the beautiful thing is, it's true. I am busy with school. Thus: "Sorry, I forgot to call you back! Oh no, I haven't done dishes in two weeks and my apartment is slowly being taken over by dust bunnies! I can't go grocery shopping, I am BUSY WITH SCHOOL."

And, I mean, I am totally really, really busy with school most of the time. But sometimes, I am actually busy with thirty billion games of Mahjong Solitaire, and hygiene, groceries, dishes, reasonable bedtimes, tax returns, emails, and laundry can just go fuck themselves.

[katekat]

you are not alone, and pretty much perfectly describe my existence. Every time a semester rolls to it's conclusion and I look up from papers/research/games of freecell/dreamwidth to see there are actual people out there they say "oh, we understand!" and I think "oh, thank god you do not have a program-timer-tracker on my computer and stopped following my blog and so cannot see how much i post"

[feanna]

Sleep and get up when I'm supposed to - AHAHAHAHAHA (It's after 5 am right now, and no, I am not an early riser, also I really need to study today.)

I am spared taking care of my money by virtue of my father doing it for me. I do have a personal account, but he mostly deals with my savings, although I do have direct access to a part of it. (These savings exist because I am a boring boring person who hasn't been on vacation since forever even though she wants to and never does anything else exciting either, even though she wants to, I have ISSUES, but they are nothing that actually requires much taking care of (I AM a student without income), so I figure I'd manage, but he still does a better job finding the best interests. Also, he ows me money and he's paying me the same interest I'd get from the bank...
My mother also ows me money, but I don't figure I'll ever see any of that again, because she totally fails at being a responsible adult with money. She's very lucky there that she's got my father.

I do do impulse buys from time to time, but seeing how I have low regular expenses I can afford this (probably).


Also, what is this cleaning thing you are talking about??? (Actually, the cleanliness of my place has the odd tendency to reflect the general level of succes I have at organizing my life and sticking to it. At times where I lost control, dirty things have piled up, though I have only grown mold on my dishes that one time.)

[thefourthvine]

Ooo! You have a personal accountant! That's very cool.

Actually, the cleanliness of my place has the odd tendency to reflect the general level of succes I have at organizing my life and sticking to it. At times where I lost control, dirty things have piled up, though I have only grown mold on my dishes that one time.

I think that's pretty true for everyone - at least, I know that if I'm feeling overwhelmed, every single task seems hopeless, mostly because my emotional and energy reserves are already tapped. And then, once I let things go...

[rushthatspeaks]

Advanced adulthood technique: I make my wife go to the doctor.

Of course, this is also why I put 'other' under finances, because the answer to that question is 'I haven't paid attention to any of that in years and years because I suckered my spouse into doing it for me'.

In general between us we are a responsible adult.

[perspi]

AHAHAHA THIS--between the two of us in this household, we are a single responsible entity. PERFECT.

[perspi]

What do I do for help? I call my mom. A LOT. My parents raised six kids on a monthly milk check and a giant garden, so, you know, they've got the Responsible Adult thing down PAT.

I think, ultimately, Responsible Adulthood is a myth. Like some kind of Platonic ideal we're supposed to want to strive for but will never reach. Because I feel like I'm largely faking it, and the whole thing generally sucks.

And I agree with you COMPLETELY on the disbelief that they actually let us leave the hospital with a tiny, perfect person! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? WE HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT WE ARE DOING!! WHY YOU SEND US AWAY?

[pandarus]

Pity my friend, who didn't even know she was pregnant until a week before giving birth, believed (as her doctor assumed) that she was only a few weeks gone, only told her boyfriend about the pregnancy when she found herself having what she thought was a miscarriage, was put in a regular ward because the doctors also assumed, even after an examination, that she was having a miscarriage AND WALKED OUT OF THE HOSPITAL A FEW HOURS LATER WITH A FULL-TERM BABY.

She had to phone and tell work that she couldn't come in 'cause she'd had a baby, and they were all "Don't be RIDICULOUS, just admit you're hungover!"

[sara]

Heh. At a fairly young age, I became such a responsible adult that in the long run it's probably caused nearly as many problems as it's solved. Look, the alternatives weren't all that good, really.

Buying a vacuum-cleaning robot has helped a lot with the clean ALL the things? problem. Although I still feel like it's cheating, so now I run the vacuum-cleaning robot and then wash the floors afterward. Er.

[pandarus]

Buying a vacuum-cleaning robot has helped a lot with the clean ALL the things? problem. Although I still feel like it's cheating, so now I run the vacuum-cleaning robot and then wash the floors afterward. Er.

Holy shit, we really do live in the future, don't we?

::is impressed::

[happydork]

One of my flatmates is the single most efficient person I know. She does ALL the bills; if something is wrong, she calls the letting agency THE FIRST TIME she notices the problem; at one point, to save freezer space, she CONSOLIDATED MY PEAS. (I had, like, three less-than-half-full packets of frozen peas. Now I have one very full packet of frozen peas.) When I have questions about adulthood, I go to her. When I should have questions about adulthood but don't even realise it, she comes to me.

She doesn't know, but I intend to live with her forever. I've picked out adjacent plots in the graveyard, in case there is paperwork in the afterlife.

[foursweatervests]

I have a friend like this, who pretty much carried me through my college years. She is why I can balance a checkbook and have an excellent credit score and resist impulse buys, and all the other things I refused to let my mother teach me. I, too, will be stalking her in the afterlife. I firmly believe this is a valid life choice.

[lydiabell]

Why do I get the feeling that this entire thread could serve as a pretty fair screening test for Imposter Syndrome?

[melannen]

Is it really a "syndrome" rather than "being a human being" if somewhere between 85% and 98.5% of people experience it (going by this poll?)

...this is what bothers me about 'imposter syndrome'; I was raised in the belief that of *course* everybody's faking it, that's how it works - if you fake competence well enough, there's no externally discernable difference between that and actually being competent. You should find comfort and not shame in this fact. It's only when you've been convinced that you're the only one who's faking it that it becomes problematic.

[innocentsmith]

I am moving in two days, half my stuff isn't packed, and my bank account has a negative balance!

THE LOLCATS. THEY CALL TO ME.

Honestly, my primary coping strategy is "Read fic until you don't feel like hyperventilating anymore. Then do the dishes or something so you feel like you've accomplished something, and then you can start thinking about how to tackle the Adulthood Fail issue du jour. If you still can't think of anything, read more fic." It works pretty well! I mean, for a given value of "well" that allows for the fact that I'm moving in two days, half my stuff isn't packed, and my bank account has a negative balance.

...

*goes and looks for fic to read*

[pandarus]

&hearts s you