A month from today, I’ll be turning 30.
An arbitrary number and a meaningless milestone, of course.
Nothing separates the life of a 30-year-old from that of 29 or 31, not even any fun little legal bonuses like “allowed to drink” or “allowed to get a driver’s license.” It’s just something that sounds different in conversation, or something to get emotionally hung up on, as you leave your “twenties” and enter your “thirties.”
I’ve been…uh, a bit hung up on it. As I tend to get hung up on things.
It’s not a matter of feeling like I’m old (which I’m not) or being in denial of time passing (which I’m not, on a good day.) It’s also not a matter of wanting to turn back the clock and go back to my 20s, nor is it really even a matter of whining about adult responsibilities. I’m fine with all of that.
Instead, I’ve just felt a little lost. For years I’ve been looking around, waiting for the signal that I’ve fully entered adulthood and life is definitively different now, and I feel like they never showed up. I never got the memo, I never passed the highway billboard.
Meanwhile, people around me are getting married, having kids, and (somehow) buying houses. Hitting all those typical life checkpoints.
For me, life after high school has just felt like a slow boil of gradual changes, and I think I always wished it was something more signposted than that. Something that would signal that I’ve “made it”, and now it’s time get my act together and click everything neatly into place.
I think I’ll have to do my best to just build those signposts myself.
1.
Thanks to pop culture, I think I always had a childish idea of what adulthood would be, and what it would look like when I got there.
It was a subconscious idea, to be clear, but I felt like it was always sitting in the back of my mind, like a little kernel of a feeling.
I had thought adulthood would be…like…being a stereotypical salaryman.
Going to the office in a button-down and a tie. Working hard for the boss man, and smoking cigarettes out on the sidewalk. Coming home with your little suitcase and hat and nice leather shoes.
What would “home” be? I don’t know. A spouse, a house, a couple kids or pets? Big green lawn with a single tree poking out of it?
I’m joking, obviously, but…only like half-joking.
I knew these were all clichés, and they’re wrapped up in a million stereotypes of gender, income, class, and race. It’s nothing but a crayon drawing of adulthood, of “middle-class American masculinity” specifically, filtered through fiction and hundreds of TV commercials.
But I really did feel like something LIKE that was going to be the sign that I had entered adulthood. That there was a clear separation between “young adult” and “adult.” That there was a mark that signified I’d reached the checkpoint.
When I think about it, I think part of the reason I’m hung up on turning 30 at all (which is a silly thing to be hung up on) is because of a thin layer of anxiety that runs in the back of my mind at all times.
I’m a bit self-conscious about how I look, as many people are. Self-conscious about my clothes and my decor. Self-conscious about my interests and my choice of job.
As useless as I know it is, and despite the universal advice to not do it…I can’t help but look around and compare myself to others. I think “god, look at her, she’s so fucking cool” or “oh god, what is that guy going to think of me when he sees me?” These are mostly meaningless comparisons that don’t really serve much purpose other than to distract us or nudge us to act a certain way. But they still find a way to pop up into my head.
At my most childish over the years, I’ve worried about whether I’m putting people on pedestals who are literally just going about their mundane lives. Which isn’t a fair thing to do to them or to myself, as I flatten their lives (and my own) into a competition of who’s winning at being an adult.
2.
I’ve never been very fashion-minded.
I’m more interested in clothes and style now than ever before, but it’s not clothes and style involving ME. It’s just as an abstract concept, as something that other people do. Fashion is something that I admire on other people, or on billboards, or on mannequins, or in illustrations.
As a kid, I was a staunch believer in “It doesn’t matter what I look like, it’s my actions and words that matter.” I didn’t want to stress about my outward appearance if the only things that should count are my sense of character. Being a good student and being nice mattered to me, not looking outwardly attractive and appealing.
When I look back on this now, I’m of two minds about it.
On one hand…it was a sort of denial that you can only afford when you come from a place of privilege. As a white boy with good grades in a predominantly white school district, I was positioned to have people take me seriously for my “brains” and my “words” as opposed to judging me based on my hair or face or sense of fashion or anything else superficial.
It was naïve, in a way. I hoped that I could be exempt from fashion and preening for good looks. I wanted to believe that my acne in middle school and scraggly facial hair in high school wouldn’t have any impact on how anyone thought of me or interacted with me.
Most naïvely, I believed that “fashion and style” was a game that you could opt out of playing if you weren’t interested. What I didn’t realize until a few years later is that “choosing not to play” is in itself a style choice. You don’t become invisible, you’re just a guy who wears t-shirts and cargo pants every day now.
But on the other hand…there’s a part of me that thinks “isn’t that exactly how we should hope kids will see the world?” Isn’t it a good thing for kids to not be self-conscious about their body, or clothes, or their voice? Yes, reality is complicated, but isn’t it a blessing and a relief when a kid can at least go a few years before they get hit with that reality? When I look back with hindsight, I wouldn’t want to take that away from any kid going through middle school. Kids should be allowed to wear what makes them comfortable, even if it’s a cringy Sonic the Hedgehog sweatshirt and adidas sweatpants. The year that they stop wearing what makes them comfortable and start worrying about what their peers will think is a moment where a simple joy is chiseled away.
And, of course, kids SHOULDN’T stress about their acne or their scraggly facial hair or their imperfections. Believing that their friends and teachers will treat them the same way…isn’t that the exact thing we would want every kid to believe? It is, in fact, only their words and actions that should matter. This is doubly true for any kids going through complicated feelings about their gender or body-image, who might be experimenting with something new or transitioning to a more masculine or feminine sense of style. They shouldn’t have to live with anxiety that their peers are going to make fun of them, they should feel assured that only the quality of their words, action, and personhood will count.
When I finally left high school and got to college, those complicated realities about being seen started to set in. I realized that appearance wasn’t a game I could opt out of playing, and that for better or for worse, people were going to take in what I looked like with their eyeballs. I didn’t undergo any sort of grand transformation, but I did start at least paying attention to what I looked like and what I wore.
College was, thus far, peak “being in the same vicinity as other people” era for me. I picked my clothing accordingly.
(Side note: curse my move from a New York school to a California school…I’m much more into autumn and winter fashion, and was dipping my toe into being a sweater vest kind of guy, but it’s way too hot for that in California.)
After graduation, I didn’t land a traditional job I was aiming for (such as at an American animation studio.) Instead, I worked briefly at an elementary school and then transitioned into working from home as a indie game dev.
So at this point, keeping up appearances was already slipping. Fast-forward to the pandemic and all bets were off.
Throughout the pandemic, something happened that has never happened to me before: I stopped fitting into all of my pants.
I was changing pants sizes, something that hadn’t happened to me at all since high school. I realize now that I didn’t know how to react to this. I personally hate going in and out of fitting rooms, trying to find stuff that fits properly. This, combined with the conflicted feelings that many people probably feel when they suddenly change sizes, meant that it wasn’t something I really wanted to address.
Conveniently, I didn’t have to address it at all: peak pandemic lockdown meant a swap over to comfortable, stretchy pants.
I started defaulting to the same few articles of clothing that fit me comfortably, regardless of what they looked like. I wasn’t “proud” of it, but I had other things to worry about.
Now, years after the pandemic starting and on the eve of turning 30, I feel self-conscious about how I dress.
This was going to happen no matter what, but some things particularly drew my attention to it. One was an episode of the new podcast Never Post, hosted by Mike Rugnetta, that ran a story about the increasing trend of mothers and daughters who dress essentially the same as each other. Both generations are trending towards casual street-wear and athleisure that basically look the same. While there’s nothing horrifically wrong with people of different ages being interested in the same clothes, there is something about it that feels off to me. And since I could relate to it (noticing children and teens walking home from school who dress the same way I do), I started to wonder if I felt okay with that.
[CW: Skip to the next section to skip a brief discussion of my body and weight.]
In addition to fashion…on rare occasions, when I’m feeling really down on myself, I don’t like what my body looks like either.
Luckily, I’m able to keep a pretty good attitude most of the time. I think dieting and weight-loss culture become toxic and self-destructive pretty easily, and thus those are ideas that I keep my distance from. I’m more focused on feeling positive, or at least neutral, about my body and my weight. If my doctor says my health looks great, then I’m on the right track. I make an effort to not scrutinize myself in the mirror for this very reason
My body’s going through changes and that’s okay. If anything, it’s the most direct signpost I’ve seen of “you’ve entered adulthood” so far, so in a way it’s almost comforting! My body isn’t going to stay the same as it was when I was a skinny little teenager, that wouldn’t make sense. I am, as they say, a work-in-progress.
If anything, it’s the literal process of not being able to fit into my favorite clothes and having to find and buy new ones that is frustrating. “I can’t fit into my pants” is an embarrassing thought to have or to share out loud, and it triggers all sorts of other thoughts and insecurities, so I’ll take this opportunity to forgive myself for retreating into stretchy jogger pants for four years.
To finally take steps towards addressing these feelings, I am finally trying to put the effort in to figuring out what my real pants size is now (and how it will feel different with the different styles, “slim” leg vs “straight” leg etc).
I actually got a pair of pants the other day, the type that looks nice and I would wear back in college and…….they fit! I got the right size. It made me feel so happy and relieved to put them on. It made me feel like I could figure my style out again, one step at a time, and feel more like an adult rather than someone dressing only for convenience.
3.
My dissatisfaction with turning 30 isn’t just a matter of feeling like I should look different. In a lot of ways, it’s a matter of thinking that I should be doing something different with my life and with my time.
I’m an indoorsman, something that has become slightly more embarrassing to admit even as mainstream culture has embraced it.
Video games, TV, comics, animation, the internet…whether I like it or not, these are my interests.
I think there’s something about that which will always feel strange to navigate.
To be clear, not strange to navigate in the sense that society has turned a judgmental eye towards it. In fact, if anything…nerd culture has won the war and become pop culture. I don’t ever have to worry about a lack of validation, community, or “content” related to my interests ever again.
Instead, it’s more strange to navigate in an interior sense.
Because even though there’s no shame in liking these things, and pop culture and megacorps have joined in that sentiment…I still feel weird about staying attached to things I liked when I was a little kid.
Nobody should shame you into putting away the comic books and cartoons of your youth, but…if you don’t put them away, how do you accept that your youth has ended?
Is there a risk, possibly, of stifling yourself if you DON’T put those things away? A risk of trying to stretch out your adolescence longer and longer?
If you take even a brief stroll through social media or Youtube, you will find a legion of white men in their thirties who have made colorful nerd culture stuff a part of their identity.
Some of them have done this with grace. They’ve fostered a sense of maturity, self-awareness, and reasonable levels of distance with the hobbies they enjoy. They’re decent people, sharing their interests and always looking to grow, think, and change. They’re, y’know…well-adjusted and sensible (Note to self: take cues from those guys I guess?)
Other guys…not so much. Others have taken the opportunity (MCU dominance at the box office, the potential to make money streaming video games, the pop culture success of properties like D&D) to be…utterly cringe-inducing. They’re reactive, defensive, and gatekeeping. Or maybe they’re not even aggressive, but are quietly small-minded, dismissive, and self-important. On both sides of the coin, it feels fair to call them man-children. They walk in circles, unable to put their favorite superhero or kids’ cartoon down long enough to widen their media diet or to make room in the community for new voices. They’ve stretched themselves into an infinite adolescence.
Obviously, this isn’t exclusive to nerd culture. There are obnoxious, obsessive men who have made all sorts of interests their core identity: whether that be football, firearms, rock music, or rise-and-grind entrepreneur culture.
So…y’know…I think about how best to be true to myself without indulging in all these horrible tendencies. I like games and manga and all that…but I don’t want to become JUST that guy. I don’t want to surround myself in otaku memorabilia as a way to never have to grow up, never engage in the world in a multi-faceted way.
Just like with the fashion-shame, there’s something slightly childish about even my idea of not wanting to seem childish. There’s a lump in my stomach that says I need to take up some new hobby that will make me feel more like an adult, or more like a man. There’s an instinct that assures me that if I get a Peloton, or start making overnight oats, or get into weightlifting…THEN I’ll finally be a man instead of a boy. That’ll be the checkpoint, marking my Before (childish diversions!) and my After (admirable self-improvement!)
This line of thinking is misguided, of course. In fact, I’m willing to bet that that exact need to prove yourself is what makes so many men become toxic and unpleasant in their thirties to begin with. I see it in others and it makes me roll my eyes…and yet here I am! Talking myself in circles as I hear the exact same siren song: to adapt new things into my identity purely for the sake of making myself feel Grown Up, Strong, and Taken Seriously.
You can make yourself feel big by diving headfirst into some new obsession or subculture. Or, like the aforementioned man-children, by inflating your obsession with one of your old interests and trying to become one of the dusty old gatekeepers.
I'm also painfully aware that this is the exact feeling of inadequacy, the exact need to prove yourself, that other men exploit by trying to sell you weird protein supplements and get you to sign up to their stock market + crypto newsletter.
So at the very least, that’s something I find myself trying to be mindful of as I cross over from my 20s into my 30s.
4.
One last thing that hangs on my mind as I get older is trying to think about my place in the world. What do I do and say to others? Am I good neighbor? A good brother or uncle? Am I a good partner, or a good…citizen? Do I live out my values in any consistent way?
Weird statistic, but I still can count the times that I’ve given my representative in Congress a phone call with just one hand. That doesn’t seem right, if I want to be an engaged citizen who wants to nudge my country in a better direction. It’s letting my anxiety get the better of my values.
I also don’t have much experience in volunteer work, or in protests.
These things make me ashamed, but unlike with fashion or hobbies…I think it’s a good shame.
Being an adult probably should come with some sort of responsibility to be courageous, treat others with kindness, and fight for your community. If I can make any good use out of my self-conscious nature, it’ll hopefully be to push myself in that exact direction. I want to grow into someone who is more willing to stand up for my values, and lend a helping hand to people around me. I don't want to be holed up in my little cave, letting the world burn around me, telling myself "well, that stuff out there doesn't affect me."
I want to be less self-centered (don’t check the wordcount on this post lol). I want to be one piece of a bigger community.
To be blunt, there is an obvious moment in a person’s life when these types of feelings can be fulfilled.
It’s when you become a parent.
But I’m not interested in having kids.
I love being an uncle, of course. And honestly my short time working at an elementary school wasn’t so bad. But I’m not planning to have kids of my own.
There’s probably no checkpoint more obvious, in the journey from childhood to adulthood, than becoming a parent. I’m sure that that moment is a paradigm shift, the ultimate signpost that you have entered the adult world and have to change all of your routines and ways of thinking. It makes life about more than yourself, it forces you (if you’re a decent parent) to consider someone’s needs and wants before your own. It humbles you. It connects you to other parents at your kid's school. It makes you a part of something bigger.
So where does that leave the rest of us child-less folk?
It leaves us to have to decide what our checkpoints will be. Life isn’t going to hand us one that is obvious and world-changing. We’re going to have to find a way to mark time ourselves, using whatever we think is appropriate. There might not be a clear Before and After of adulthood.
I don’t have a kid. Or a dog. Or a lawn with a single tree sticking out of it. Or a salaryman job working for a big boss who smokes a cigar and tells me I suck or whatever.
None of those things that I thought would be the big, obvious, glowing neon sign of “you’ve made it, you’re grown now.”
But, of course…that’s okay.
I’m done looking for signs and checkpoints. I’ve made my own. It’s this piece, that I’m posting now. This is my checkpoint.
Sure, it's silly and arbitrary. 30 is a completely arbitrary milestone, after all. Does it deserve anything grander than a post?
Turning 30 is going to mean something different for everyone else. For others, maybe it is the year that their first child was born. Or the year they closed on a house. Or the year they got a big promotion, or moved across the globe.
For me, I think…it means the end of making excuses.
Maybe this sounds stupid, but since I’m putting it all on the table here…when I struggle with things, or I disappoint someone, there’s a tiny voice in the back of my mind. It’s a voice that makes excuses. It’s that “heyyy, you can’t get mad at me, I’m just a little guyyy” voice.
It’s like my reflex against anxiety and self-consciousness. A voice that makes up justifications like “it makes sense I wasn’t able to do that, I’m still young and figuring things out” or “I don’t know how to do that, my parents never taught me how to do that growing up.” Or “in my hometown, we never encountered that or had to deal with that.” The excuses are a way to comfort me, I think, and make me feel less guilty. To pass the buck a little bit and give me forgiveness for not being able to figure something out.
And while self-forgiveness and patience is great…making excuses and defenses because “you’re just a smol little bean” when you’re 29? Not great.
So this is exactly why I’m writing this and why I’m planting the flag here.
I don’t want to be someone who makes excuses, even if it’s just to myself. That’s the thing I see in myself that is completely contradictory to my idea of being an adult.
From now on, if I don’t know something or I’m not good at it…that’s a flaw of myself as a person. And that’s okay. If I don’t know a lot about fixing cars, or I’m not good at cooking, or I'm out of the loop on my state's local politics, or I wouldn’t last a week out in the wilderness…that’s not because I’m “not old enough”. It’s because that’s just me as a dude.
And if I want to change any of those things? That's great. But it’s not a matter of getting older. It’s a matter of sitting down, being real with myself, and learning more about a subject just like anyone else does. It's about putting the effort in instead of waiting for it to be taught to you.
I don’t want to make excuses. I don’t want to pass the buck to a future version of me who won’t make those mistakes because he’ll be a REAL grown-up, or a REAL man.
I am who I am.
I’m not waiting in the wings, waiting for my turn on the stage. I’m on the stage. I’m here, we’re all here, we’re in it. The time for letting stage fright get the best of me is over.
I’m not writing this to whine, or make excuses, or say “woe is me.” It’s exactly the opposite. I’m writing all these thoughts to bottle up all my worries from my 20s, put them on the shelf, and move on. To close the book on this whole way of thinking.
Whatever I do, or say, or learn, or look like from here on out…it’s not a process of boy-ish “growing up" and "fumbling."
It’ll just be me, and I have to own it.
