OH GOD I DON’T KNOW. I’m not very good at adulting in private–I haven’t cleaned a single thing in my house (dishes, laundry, floors, w/e) in a terrifyingly long time, and I had french fries and gin for “dinner” (it was at happy hour, I ate at happy hour.)
I CAN convincingly portray an adult to the outside world, however. Here are my tricks, such as they are:
-Adulthood is a performance, so work on your stagecraft. Get some make up that suits you, and learn to quickly apply it with a minimum of fuss. If you can afford it, have the nice people at Sephora match a foundation and a cover up to your skin. That plus some basic eyeliner gets people who are younger than you to believe you are a Put Together Grown Up, and people who are older than you to believe you are a Responsible Young Person. It’s sexism at work, but it makes a difference. I think people interpret it as the facial equivalent of having neat handwriting.
-If you’re gonna be a lazy and self-sabotaging asshole, figure out how to do that without getting in your own way (too much.) I am the LAZIEST ASSHOLE, and I make my life far more complicated and disgusting than it needs to be as a direct result of that–but I let myself fuck things up in private. I fuck things up for myself, not for other people. It sucks for ME if my kitchen is filthy. My work, however, gets done on time. Prioritize your laziness. I can’t not do my work because I want to lie on the couch and watch Jane the Virgin. I CAN refuse to do my dishes because I want to lie on the couch and watch Jane the Virgin. Decide what nonessential system you’re gonna sabotage, and deliberately sabotage that instead of waiting around to see if this time you’re gonna fuck up the life support. (This is obviously a stopgap for if you absolutely, pathologically, for some reason, NEED to be a lazy, self-sabotaging asshole. as I apparently do. If you have the option of NOT being a lazy, self-sabotaging asshole, DO THAT INSTEAD.)
-in a related story, the only time I have consistently had a clean and comfortable living situation was when I lived with someone else, and therefore being a lazy asshole at home would fuck things up for more than just me. If shame motivates you, FINE. USE IT.
-Smile at people and say hello. People like it when you smile at them and say hello. If you can remember their name, say their name. I do not have this instinct even a LITTLE–I have deliberately trained myself to do it in professional contexts. I think it helps.
-Faking it IS making it. The other day I was like “UGH, IT IS GOING TO BE SO CLEAR THAT I’M A LAZY IDIOT WHO DOESN’T CARE ABOUT [THING] IN THIS MEETING, AND EVERYONE WILL DESPISE ME AND SEE ME FOR THE FRAUD I AM,” and then I was like “HOW CAN I GIVE A CONVINCING PERFORMANCE OF A PERSON WHO RADIATES WARMTH, EFFICIENCY, AND EXPERTISE DURING THIS MEETING?”, and then I googled a couple things and jotted down some notes and considered a couple things, and by the time the meeting came around I was not just giving an effective performance of a person who was prepared, I was ACTUALLY prepared.
-People tend to think your life is together if your outfits are together. This is also sexism. It still works. Do your best to make sure your outfits are clean and neat. Doesn’t mean they have to be boring. Just clean and neat. My apartment is in a SHAMBLES atm, but I leave the house dressed for the part of Responsible Adult.
i have no idea if any of this will help, but it’s what I got. You have a cat, and cats are good, although they are also sometimes judgmental! It’s okay for your cat to know you are a mess. It’s okay for YOU to believe you’re a mess. Just try and put on a convincing show for other people.
I turn 35 tomorrow and god, all, all, all, of this. I cannot underscore how much adulthood is performative, second only to gender.
I will tell you now: most of the time, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. But I can make things easier for myself by understanding that I don’t. Google is your friend, and if you have friends, acquaintances, or family members that might Know Things, ask them.
I think part of being an adult is understanding what shortcomings will fuck you. I am a forgetful person. So I try and take the burden off myself as much as possible. Most of my bills are automated, I take advantage of Google’s creepy insistence on taking over my life by integrating their calendar reminders about appointments and events. If it’s real fucking important, it goes on a to-do list.
Be kind to other people as much as you can, and nice when it’s called for. Learn the difference between kind and nice.
Know your lines, what you consider acceptable and unacceptable, in big and small things. “If you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?”
Also you can totally have ice cream for breakfast.
Oh man, I think it’s so important to know that ALL ADULTS ARE FAKING IT (to a greater or lesser degree in different settings; some adulting tasks are easier for some people than others). I think people in my general age range (I’m 41) are more willing to admit it – to each other if no one else – than we were when we were younger. By the time you get to my age people generally accept you as an adult regardless of what you do, not at all true when you’re in your 20s where you have to practice at performing adulthood a little harder to make people take you seriously, and you have also reluctantly acknowledged that you’re never going to cross over the Magic Adult Threshold, and neither has anyone around you, and that’s okay. (I do actually feel like an adult now. I hit that point in my early thirties, where it stopped astonishing me that other people expected me to do Responsible Adult Things and I was actually managing to achieve them. But I also know people older than me who have never really gotten that internal “I’m an adult now!” feeling, and that’s okay too.)
But yeah, I think the most important thing is just figuring out what you need to be an adult about, and how much of the rest of it is actually important to you, and then letting yourself off the hook as much as possible for not living up to an imaginary gold standard of adulthood. My husband still stays up all night playing video games just like he did in college. I spend hours and hours writing fanfic, flail online over celebrities, and have never learned to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Neither one of us does much housework. But we pay the bills on time and both of us have learned how to look like Confident Responsible Adults in a professional business setting (key word there is learned; it took me a number of years of practice and study to get decent at it).
You don’t get a gold star for working overtime to do all the adulting tasks, let alone for giving up things you enjoy just because adults aren’t “supposed” to enjoy them anymore. And you don’t get an F for leaving dishes in the sink overnight or having pie for breakfast. You just kinda have to learn what’s really important to your health and wellbeing and professional life, and what your priorities are. I would rather write fanfic than do dishes, and the Adulting Police are not going to come to my house to check up on me about it, but I also know that I have to make myself stop writing fanfic and do Important Work Things so the bills can be paid, or take a shower and make my hair look nice before going to an interview with the mortgage people, or make myself a decent meal at least once a day because otherwise my blood sugar goes to hell and I can’t get anything done. And that is not only how you go about convincing other people that you are a Responsible Adult, it is how you actually ARE one.
Even if you still go to bed at 3 a.m. because you were up too late crying over fanfic. Nobody’s gonna know, and, not only that, but they’re probably doing it too. If not fanfic, then something else.
Hi! What secrets of Adulting have you managed to pick up? How do you adult I am a year older than you (I think) but I still can’t convince myself not to eat ice cream for breakfast or find a job that will pay me a living wage, like even my cat judges me. Your cat seems cool? Help! Also I too am drunk, thanks autocorrect!,
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