Dear 25, This is Why I Hate You

Dear 25,

This is why I hate you.

Twenty-five years. That’s a whole quarter of a century. One fourth of one hundred years. It’s the age the characters in Friends were when the series started in 1994; it’s two years older than my parents were when they got married; and it’s the oldest age ever used to describe a divorcee’s hot young second wife. I turned 25 this year. I don’t live in New York with five of my best friends; I’m not married nor am I seeing anyone; and not that I would, but dammit, now I’ll probably never get to be the sexy young wife of a rich old dirt bag.

25, look at you. You are mid-to-late twenties. You are the numerical age at which a person instantly can’t go out every night without seeming like a drunk. You say I should be working a 9 to 5 job and investing in a 401k, I should definitely be on dating sites, as they say, you ain’t getting any younger and next stop is 30, and friends my age are having weddings and kids and buying homes and having playdates and hosting barbecues for their neighbors. What? No. I don’t want that. But 25 says if I’m not there, I’m not doing anything with my life. 25, you fucking blow.

Why have you earned such a bad rap, 25? You seem innocent enough, hell at least you’re not 30. But it seems that society sees you as this ledge over which everyone gets shoved after college when you’re expected to start having kids and create Facebook statuses about cooking, the best schools, and saving for a home loan. Ugh what is this?! I’m 25 and still a kid all the way through. I don’t want to grow up and be responsible, that’s for old people, you know, thirty-somethings. Life is about having fun and experiencing everything there is out there to be experienced, whether it’s fun, beautiful, stupid, or boring. If you give in to 25, you’re succumbing to the mind-numbing routine of wake, work, home; wedding, kids, suburbs; kill, me, now.

Wake up 25-year-olds. Newsflash, you probably don’t even really know what you want in life at this age. There’s a reason men go through their mid-life crises, buy sports cars when they start losing their hair, and divorce and remarry and divorce and play the single life at 50, while women fill their faces with poison, redecorate the house, and do the tennis instructor. These guys turned 25 and said, well guess I better settle down. I mean, I’m not really ready to and don’t really want to, but hell, I’m supposed to be responsible and make my parents proud, right? Ew. This isn’t the 19^th century where everyone dies at 30 so girls and boys pair up at 18 and start popping out children to run the family farm. We’re living longer and healthier than ever. Women are freezing their eggs, people aren’t retiring until their seventies, and the elderly have the online dating site, Our Time! 25 is young, y’all!

Okay, 25, you do have some redeemable qualities. You’re not the absolute worst. At least you’re an age at which you can feel independent and live alone, but still piggyback off your parents’ phone plan. You can knowledgeably argue about politics and social issues with other adults and feel totally justified if they don’t see your point because you’re still young enough to think you’re always right. If you and your 25 year-old friends get drunk and pass out on the sidewalk while walking home from the bars, you probably won’t be mistaken for a pack of drunk homeless people. Probably. These are some serious merits. I’m not saying they make up for everything, but they’re helping your case, 25.

The funny thing about 25 is that’s it’s one of those ages we never think we’ll get to. Not that we think we’re going to die before we reach it, but it’s just too old and too far away, even at 21, to think about being. The next one for me is 29, then 33, 35, and everything after that until 81. I don’t know what it is about 81, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be that age at some point…maybe in like 56 years or so. But 25. 25, you’re just a little awkward. You think you’re older than you are, but you also want to be younger than you are, and you definitely don’t want to be where you are, so you just kinda sit there twiddling your thumbs while waiting for 26 to come along and cement reality. I guess I don’t totally hate you, 25. You’ve actually been pretty good to me so far. But look, can you do me a huge favor? I promise I’ll think you’re the best thing ever if you do me this solid. Could you just have a little chat with 30 and tell that bitch to beat it the fuck out of here? Thanks, 25, you’re the best. I’ll love you forever.

Once Upon a Time, 200 Years Ago

A Quick(ish) Look at the Works of Jane Austen’s Portrayal of Society

I personally love Jane Austen’s work because she was a great satirist; each of her characters makes a complete and utter fool of themselves at least once in their respective novels. Most of the characters are also interchangeable because they were based in part on how people in Austen’s society acted, both in public and at private parties. Women chased after older men with money (not too different from today), men flirted with all the girls but married none of them, and the heroine won out at the end (also, very much the same). Her writing, in only the first and last sentences of her novels, revealed that which was most important to a good majority of members of society at the time.

As Alphonse Karr (1808-1890) once said,

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I include a quick translation of what it is that she is describing in each of the two sentences that are excerpted from her works.Feel free to judge as you like how closely Austen’s world resembles our own.

 

Pride and Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.

Translation: A rich man needs a wife. Darcy and Elizabeth loved them [her aunt and uncle] for ultimately bringing them together in marriage.

Northanger Abbey

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of 26 and 18 is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced that the general’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

Translation: As a child, there was nothing great about Catherine Morland. They were happily married at the ages of 26 and 18, no thanks to her father, who tried hard to keep them apart; unfortunately, he only succeeded in bringing them closer together.

Lady Susan

My dear brother,–I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of profiting by your kind invitation when we last parted of spending some weeks with you at Churchhill, and, therefore, if quite convenient to you and Mrs. Vernon to receive me at present, I shall hope within a few days to be introduced to a sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted with.

For myself, I confess that I can pity only Miss Mainwaring; who, coming to town, and putting herself to an expense in clothes which impoverished her for two years, on purpose to secure him, was defrauded of her due by a woman ten years older than herself.

Translation: I [the character] have finally decided to visit you [brother] and meet your wife. I pity Miss Mainwaring, who spent a lot of money on clothes she hoped would impress [a man], but lost him to an older woman.

Mansfield Park

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

On that event they removed to Mansfield; and the Parsonage there, which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach but with some painful sensation of restrain or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park had long been.

Translation: About thirty years ago, a poor girl, Miss Maria Ward, married a rich man, Sir Thomas Bertram, and, consequently, her rank in society and possessions rose. Although Fanny never liked the House (because of the two previous owners), she soon loved it as much as she loved the rest of Mansfield Park.

Emma

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.

Translation: Emma Woodhouse was beautiful, rich, and lived a comfortable life, with nothing to worry her for nearly 21 years. Everything that really matters at a wedding—the wishes, hopes, confidence, predictions of true friends, and especially the happiness of the couple—was present.

Persuasion

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed.

She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.

Translation: Sir Walter Elliot only read one book; the history of his family, and most specifically, the entry about himself. She was happy to be a sailor’s wife (her husband is affectionate), regardless of how society may view the profession (which is to say, of little importance).