People Reveal The Moment They Realized They Had Become An Adult.

It’s not necessarily something you consciously realize, but one day you may wake up and realize, “I’m an adult”.

Here, people reveal the moment the realized they had become an adult.

1. I spend 5 minutes in the supermarket deciding what toilet paper to get. How many ply? What colour? Is the 16 pack much cheaper than the 8 pack? So many questions.

vekko

2. When I found myself interested in conversations about things like interest rates and building my retirement portfolio.

Also found myself downstairs last week in my underpants watching the history channel and trying to get my baby girl to go to sleep by singing to her- a song that I made up on the spot about a stain on the carpet shaped like a bunny rabbit.

I realized in that moment that I had become my own father. That gave me pause… and then great satisfaction, because my dad is awesome.

AirhornSonofFoghorn

3. When I realized that playing board games and having a glass of wine with a few friends was better than clubbing on a Friday night.

birdbiscuit

4. I went to an amusement park and I looked around at all of the 14 year old girls in their jean short shorts, making out with their 18 year old boyfriends, cutting in lines, and swearing in front of little kids. My first thought was, “Where are their parents?!?”

AbigailPeters

5. Got married and used the gift vouchers I was given to buy a toaster 4 slice one and a coffee grinding mill. The rush I got from bringing those bad boys home was intense. I then proceeded to ring my mom to inform her of the multiple toasting settings it did and a review of the toast.

NyanCatForever

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6. I got excited about how the bottle of wine I had bought and the dish I had made for a dinner party I was going to were going to blow all my friends away.

Then I realized I was going to a dinner party on a Friday night. And not a “we’re gonna get drunk!” dinner party. Like a “that is a lovely salad you made” dinner party.

Kijafa

7. The day I received a booty call at 9pm and I was already in bed.

peaches1465

8. Sitting in my car in the driveway so I can listen to the rest of a story on NPR.

drivebyjustin

9. When I was little and my parents said they were having friends over. In my little kid mind that meant playing games. I was shocked when their friends would leave after just talking.

Then my friends started having kids, and I went over to their house, we hung out and talked, watched some TV. I left and it hit me… “I’m that guy, we didn’t play any games.”

blitzbom

10. There are a bunch of milestones I can think back to that made me feel very mature at the time. I remember when I first moved out of my parents’ house, when I first got my own place, when I first got a nice place. My first ‘real’ job, my first ‘real’ promotion. When I first realized that I could eat junk food whenever I wanted, and when I first realized that this is a terrible idea. But the one that really sticks out for me is this (story continued on the next page…).

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When I was a child, the entire world’s population was divided into two groups: kids and grown-ups. The line between the two wasn’t ever especially clear, because I never really thought about it. I lacked the self-awareness, I suppose; I only knew that as an eight year old, someone who was ten or twelve was a Kid in my mind, where someone who was fifteen or sixteen was a grown-up. grown-ups had money and jobs and didn’t have to go to bed when their mom told them to. Being a grown-up was awesome, and was forever closed off to me.

As I aged, this line persisted, though the age at which the delineation occurred changed to reflect my own maturity. As a twelve year old, eighteen seemed impossibly grown up. When I was sixteen, my twenty-two year old cousin seemed very much an adult. When I hit twenty, thirty year olds seemed like the ones who’d gotten their life on track.

Mentally, I’d always assumed on some level too deep to merit conscious thought that there was some secret. There was Us and Them, and They all were part of some exclusive club. I figured that eventually I’d sort of figure out the secret for myself, but I never really did.

Only somewhere along the way, the line disappeared. I look at a fifty year old now, and I see a fifty year old. I don’t think of him as being more mature than me, or knowing more, or having something I don’t. He’s older, sure, but I’ll be there before long anyway. Fifty is only a little over twenty years away, after all. But then I look at people younger than me; I see a nineteen year old, and I think that she’s just a child. College students are just figuring out how the world works — they’re children too, right on the cusp of moving into adulthood. There’s still a line, but somewhere along the way I ended up on the other side of it without ever realizing it happened.

So that’s it, I think. I have aches. I have a job and a retirement plan and responsibilities. I have matching flatware and a nice living room set. I make my bed. But the thing that made me realize that I’m no longer a kid was when I realized that somewhere along the way, I’d ended up becoming a grown-up by accident.

Mr_Mars

11. When my friends started getting pregnant on purpose.

svtscottie

12. Immediately after seeing an action filled movie at the theater, I complained that the sound was too loud.

stand_fastish

13. I got to the point where it was like “Hey, there’s this awesome house party that starts at 11pm!” and I was like “Woah woah woah, hold on there tiger, that’s when I’m in bed.”

Now any party invitation past 7 PM, I have to decline.

notjawn

14. The day I realized that I cant just quit my job whenever I feel like it.

j_jizzle

15. Scheduling time to hang out with friends. When I was a kid, we just went places and did things – sometimes with no more than 5 minutes of planning in advance. Now it seems like I live by my schedule.

“Hey man, we should get together sometime!”

“Totally – when works for you?”

“Hmm… How about Saturday?”

“Nope, what about the 13th next month?”

“Negatory, I’ve got work. Maybe the 14th?”

“Nope, both class and work. How about the Saturday after?”

“No way, I have jury duty. How about next October?”

“Nix on that, I’ve got to blow-dry my balls. Let’s hang out next year some time, alright?”

“Yeah! See you in 2018!”

Amadameus

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16. When I get called “sir” at stores. It feels weird as hell.

lamoj

17. Last night I gave a really good, thorough cleaning to my kitchen.

evange

18. “Why’s my right knee hurt?”

No reason.

ewige

19. I started school late, at 28. I’m 29 now. The first time I walked into class here at university, I thought I had the wrong room and had stumbled into some sort of middle school day camp for smart kids.

Nope, it just turns out the 18 year olds I used to ogle at now all look like they’re 12.

JakeRidesAgain

20. I live behind a park with a basketball court and a large playscape. I also live in a duplex with my future mother-in-law on the bottom floor. One day last year she and I were doing yard work and some teenagers (between the ages of 12 and 15, I’d guess) were hanging out at the playscape after playing ball. They were cursing and flinging insults at each other like, “suck my bleep, bleep!” and “You’re a bleeping bleep and bleep!” Just non-sensical curse words because they were away from their moms. My mother-in-law is such a sweet woman, but I could tell the language was bothering her (story continued on the next page…).

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After a while, I put down my rake, stuck my head over the fence and shouted sternly, “WATCH THE LANGUAGE! I’m trying to relax on a Saturday in my yard and your trash mouth is pissing off my mom! Take it somewhere else!” I then sat there with my arms crossed while they gathered their balls and bikes and took it elsewhere. I was only 27, but I felt like a grown up.

oohitsalady

21. It now takes me two days to recover after a heavy night of drinking. I used to be able to go hard Friday and Saturday night without blinking an eye…

KaszReddit

22. When I was standing in the middle of an overly crowded club with drunk college kids doing the dry-hump dance all around me and I suddenly thought “This is boring. I’m gonna go home and watch T.V.”