One thing I have difficulty with is unspoken rules. It’s funny because when I read advice columns, there are always unspoken rules that commenters get/have that I don’t undrestand. Like there was a letter about celebrating a 30th birthday over at Slate, and one of the regular commenter was derisive about the idea of an adult wanting to celebrate their birthday. How very dare they! Did they not know how unbelievably childish that was? This comes up every time the topic of birthdays are discussed at Ask A Manager as well.
Half the people are pro-celebrating your birthday as an adult. Half are agin it. I’m in the latter, but only for me. I’m pro-doing whatever you want for your birthday as long as it’s not me having to celebrate it with you for a month.
I don’t get people who care what other people do that doesn’t affect them, quite frankly. Something like celebrating a birthday…who cares how someone else does it? You don’t want to celebrate your birthday, fine! Don’t celebrate it. You want to celebrate your birthday, fine! Celebrate it. I don’t undrestand why this is such a big deal. I really don’t undrestand the ‘you’re an adult and birthdays are stooooopid’ mindset. At all.
Other people really can’t elaborate why they feel that way, either. It’s the same with Halloween. There are people who loudly scorn adults who want to dress up for Halloween, saying it’s kid stuff. Why? We don’t think acting is a kid thing, but that’s basically playing dress up. Ok, there is more to it than that, but dressing up is a big part of it.
I guess it’s just difficult for me to grasp the outrage of adults having fun in ways that kids have fun. Then again, some people think video games/board games are kid stuff, too, so there’s that. I think if you (general you) enjoy something, then who cares?
I think this is my feelings about life in general. If you are not actively harming other people, then have at it. That’s why I’m a small l libertarian. I don’t care what people do–if it’s not deliberately harming others. That’s my general philosophy, which seems to be an anathema for most people.
Even liberal people.
It’s interesting. I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule as to how most things should be. Like, the idea that to be an adult, you have to buy a house, get married, have children, have a 9-to-5 job. One thing that came up often when I talked about not wanting children was that I was being selfish. Again, this was only from women. I want to point out that internalized misogyny works hard to uphold the patriarchy.