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We hear it often. People in adulthood still acting like teenagers, or we talk about how our workplace is “so much like high school.” And even adult relationships can still be like that of teens having their first girlfriend/boyfriend. Seems like a lot of folks are still stuck in teen mode. I know for me I often raise an eyebrow to myself when I hear friends telling me about their relationships and mentioning things that seem like it shouldn’t matter to them at their age.
So why? Why is it that so many people even in adulthood have never really outgrown immature high school or college campus level behavior, mentality, etc.?
Teenhood
In some sense, teenhood is where life begins in a significant way. Your hormones are blooming and your body is changing, and also your mental development is changing in big ways that make you do and say things you will end up learning from, which is probably nature’s plan on purpose. The world seems newer and more exciting to us in a different way than when we were 10 and just thrilled to be playing at a crowded park on the summer weekends, as if that was the only thing that ever mattered in life.
But teenhood is different. We start experiencing or seeing up close the ugliness of cliques, sexual activity - or the pain of not being sexually active while all your peers are, gossip, mischief, and caring what your peers think. And high school is where we usually see all these things first, and regularly.
High school is the last stage of youth before jumping out into the world
High school is where kids become largely exposed to other toxic personalities from kids who get those things from their parents. Kids are usually not manipulative, aggressive, abusive, gossipy, whorish, or deceitful on their own. More times than not they learn these things from their own toxic parents and siblings, or the traits are passed down to them, then they exude these things with or around their peers in high school, at an age where people’s earliest social development is most intense and most malleable. And in worst case scenarios they make mistakes like getting caught up in drugs, becoming single mothers, or doing something stupid that lands them in prison and messes up future life opportunities.
And for some people, high school was their favorite time in their past. They felt like they had friends and great times, wild abandon, athletics, sexual adventures, a social life, and feeling like it was so much better than where they are now. Even when I was growing up and would see men on the news talking about Viagra and other supplements, they would always say how they “felt 16 again,” as if that was the best only best time of their life even for sex.
High school culture has also often been glamorized. Throughout the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s it was heavily sexualized in teen movies and TV shows, often full of raunchy scenes and relationships. And when you look back you realize how very inappropriate shows and movies like Dawson’s Creek and Career Opportunities really were to be glamorizing sexual behavior with teenagers or sexualizing teen girls’ bodies (even though many of those actors and actresses were in their 20s but playing the part of a young adult). This kind of entertainment not only encouraged teens to behave badly but also aroused perverted adult men and women.
Why most people never grow past high school
The high school years are often the coming-of-age point. A lot of people got their first jobs between 16 and 20, getting further exposure to the real world. Others were forced to, or forced to move out at 18 or finish their young years on college campus. Then after that they’re out into the real world having to support themselves, having to keep up with the flow of life or be left behind.
You would think all these things would actually grow people up more or deeper. They don’t. Instead what happens is they tend to carry what they were or what they learned in their teen years into their adult lives, because those were their defining years. They don’t know how to think fully about being a mature adult beyond going to work or raising kids, and they don’t know how to think deeper about life period. And that’s why we often still have high school level gymnastics in the workplace, in relationships, and sometimes even our own family dynamics.
I can’t tell you how many times grown adults have laughed at something like teenagers where nothing about it was funny, from someone falling in public, to the way someone talks, or how they carry themselves. Because growing up in high school, they learned to laugh about everything that was geeky or uncool to them, or because everyone else did. There are also lots of grown adults with social development that is still like that of someone in high school or on college campus, whose only ideas of “fun” are getting drunk, spamming you with useless memes, or forever needing to waste time goofing until 2am.
When does it change?
Unfortunately it is what it is. I am just explaining why it is. It will never change for some people, while others do become more self-aware and realize it’s time to grow up. Sometimes life situations will even do it for them. Our childhood and teen years and experiences do affect a lot of who we are as adults, especially if there was some kind of trauma in our past. But one of the key tests of growing up means growing past our childhood. Nothing wrong with looking back fondly on your youth or even still enjoying something you did when you were a kid - hell, even I miss the 90s, but maturing is the most important thing, because you will spend most of your life as an adult and not a kid in school.
Take care
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