In the words of every millennial who was once on Tumblr, adulting is hard. I’ve been a legal adult for nine years now, and I still don’t fully understand taxes. I just let TurboTax do its thing and hope for the best. They REALLY need to teach that sh*t in schools.
But I’m not the only adult who still feels like a child! I think a lot of us can relate to that. And to be honest, we can be very unprepared for what life throws at us.
U/cracksandcrevices asked: What is an adult problem that nobody prepared you for?
The worst part is the cruel awakening that we actually have to, you know, do stuff on our own.
Choosing things is hard.
Having to not only make important decisions by myself (I expected that much) but also having to do so in a timely fashion uninhibited by indecision.
Having to make decisions is such a big thing for me. Intellectually, of course I knew I'd have to make decisions. I just want ready too make them without knowing the consequences and at the speed of life.
Errands eat up sooo much time.
season 2 your shoe's untied GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants
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How much time you spend just doing stuff.
"Oh need to replace my tire and that's over by the store, so while I replace the tire I can do some errands and I'll save time and be home in no time" three hours later "Okay just one more errand before I head home"
Also how putting off a small task just a couple days in a row can quickly amount to a longer chore/responsibility later. "Eh I can just leave this in the sink, get to it later before bed" x 2 days "Why is this grime caked onto this plate still I've been scrubbing for 10 minutes straight!"
That’s what delivery is for.
Being sick and having to care for yourself. Like when you were younger your parents would get the medicine, or the medicine cabinet would just be stocked all the time, etc. But here I am with a cold having to build up the energy to go to the supermarket to buy some asprin and throat lozenges all by myself.
Underwear gnomes are the true pests.
The endless cleaning. I had chores when I was a kid, but I had zero clue how much actual work went into keeping house. I cleaned my house this morning and by midweek it'll be a war zone of pet hair, crumbs, and dust. I don't even have kids wtf it's like the underpants gnomes show up when I'm asleep and mess my house up.
Another sh*tty thing is the crushing loneliness that comes with adulthood. Why didn’t they tell us that we would have no friends after the age of 25?
The only thing I miss about school.
motivating bart simpson GIF
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A lack of community. Growing up you have your elementary school. Each day you see your friends and participate in activities together. Sometimes they move away and sometimes you do, but it largely stays the same through high school and middle school. Flash forward to adulthood and you're just alone. You want to make friends IRL, but have no idea how to go about doing it without seeming creepy, desperate, or god knows what.
This is really hard when you are not overtly religious so you cannot join a religious community. My friend and I talk about this from time to time, it's arguably the hardest thing to deal with in life. It gets worse the longer you live, as you know you are outliving your generation.
The reason why I have cats.
You can go days on end without having to speak to a single person, at first it's a dream come true, after about 2 months you start talking to your toaster to pad the silence while waiting for your toast.
I literally haven't spoken to someone beyond saying thank you/no when buying groceries in months. At first it felt kind of freeing and now it's just kinda sad.
Ditto on this advice.
The inevitably of your parents dying. My dad just passed away and I'm 25...no one could have prepared me I guess.
I feel you. Mine passed away back in August when I was 28. There's nothing you can do to prepare for it, and I'm afraid I have no magic words to make it better. Just know you're not alone. I'll never say it gets "better," but it eventually starts to suck less and your hard days get a little less frequent. I'm so, so sorry.
The sad fact is, you have to start fending for yourself with no one to help you. And that’s terrifying.
Saving money is hard for this reason alone.
Basic home maintenance: when to change air filters, smoke alarm batteries, timing of lawn care, how often do you clean the gutters, are you supposed to clean under the stove, what is edging, how do you recycle, how to change locks, etc.
Not to mention the random costs that spring up. Trying to save up money? Good for you. Except your sink just sprung a leak so you need to pay a plumber to fix that. Now you can save money agai... Nope, car needs servicing. Okay, your can definitely save money now.... Wait, that leaky sink sprouted mold so now your bathroom needs to be gutted and redone.
We are all Squidward.
Being absolutely exhausted most of the time. I never thought I'd be the 'I hate everyone' guy. But I am and everyone can f*ck off.
We all become Squidward after hitting a certain age.
You either die a SpongeBob or live long enough to become a Squidward.
Me? I'm Patrick. F*ck your rat race.
As someone who has lost a parent, I can tell you that sometimes you will never be prepared for certain events in your adult life. Everyone’s experience is different, and sometimes adulthood just means figuring it out for yourself.
You got this, grown-ups of the internet. I believe in you
But how much of what we see are authentic reactions?
Curious about the experiences of those who were on camera, Redditor S3xySouthernB asked:
"People who were on reality family shows as kids (think super nanny, wife swap etc) how much of it was real and how much was fiction/set up for drama? Did anything change?"
Unreality
The following Redditors frowned upon the concept of being portrayed differently on camera.
The Gamer
"I was on Wife Swap when I was 10 years old. My family had to switch with a farming family and we were supposed to be the 'city family' even though my family and I lived in the suburbs. There were plenty of quotes taken out of context as you'd expect. They also incited plenty of drama. I was framed as addicted to video games so they took my xbox and gameboy color for the week. A few days in one of the crew members came in with my gameboy and said 'look I found this' and handed it to me. It shouldn't be surprising that they sent the woman staying in our house into my room to 'catch me in the act'."
"To be honest not much has really changed in my life except getting snapchats of my 10 year old face when my friends catch the reruns. I'm open to any questions if anyone is curious."
It was Season 3 Episode 13 of Wife Swap"
Update for anyone who was curious about how much money the show gave us. The initial amount was $20k but after taxes it came to around $15k like others had expected."
Crazy On Cue
"My parents were 'dinner guests' in an episode of Nanny 911 and they said literally everything was staged. I don't remember all of the details, but they said the directors had a 'code word' that they would say to the kids when they were supposed to start acting all 'crazy'. And then once the scene was done, the kids would be perfectly normal."
False Front
"My friends parents were on worlds strictest parents. They came to my house on 4th of July and when they showed our house on tv it was a huge mansion rather than our actual house. The camera crew also told the visiting 'bad kids' to steal alcohol from our house."
Hoarders
A glimpse into the lives of those who are unable to part with their possessions is not always scripted TV.
Hoarding For Real
"I worked with a junk removal company for an episode of hoarders and it was actually 99% REAL. The only thing that they would set up a couple times was if they opened a box and found something interesting off camera they would re-open it on camera and act like they just found it."
Laundry Tub
"My mother was (probably still is, we aren't in contact) a hoarder and you don't HAVE to make sh*t up. They're seriously, seriously mentally ill but they refuse help because they don't think they're mentally ill, or 'it's not that bad' or they're 'going to get to it next month' or whatever. Total denial and self delusion, which is, yanno, common with severe mental illness."
"Example: for who knows what reason, my mother started putting dirty laundry in the bathtub. Eventually there was just a mountain of it. She wouldn't wash it despite our washer working fine. She wouldn't move it. She wouldn't let ME wash it. I was showering at school for weeks already when I told her 'Mom the laundry in the tub has to go. This is ridiculous. I'll help with it.'"
"She said 'There's no laundry in the tub.'"
"She actually tried to DENY REALITY. I went in there and was like 'These are clothes. In the tub. This is laundry.'"
"She replied 'Oh I think those are clean.'"
"I said, 'So then put them away?' I knew they weren't clean. I just wanted to shower."
"She said 'I'll do it this weekend when I have off.'"
"I hate to spoil the ending but..... she didn't do it."
"She hired a dumpster once and was going to 'throw out everything'. It got there. Normal sized dumpster. She didn't throw out anything because 'they sent too big of a one'. Paid hundreds of dollars to hire this dumpster and didn't use it."
"Oh. Then. She was going to sell the house. Someone actually wanted to buy it to gut and flip. It was really a cool old house, speaking design-wise. She decided at the last possible second not to sell. Had to reimburse the buyer's closing costs plus a bunch of other fees."
"Then cried to anyone who'd listen how the realtor was a scammer who 'tried to sell her house out from under her'. Like they're just rouge realtors going around, listing people's houses without their consent and selling them."
Drama
Are the emotional outbursts exhibited on reality shows genuine? Not always.
Hairy Situation
"A class mate of mine was on my country's Next Top Model. Before getting into the show she was asked what kind of hair she would never want to get, so that the producers know about it and not make her have it during the makeover episode. My classmate had long blonde hair which she really loved, so she said she doesn't want them to cut her hair off and that she also hated strange unnatural colors like blue, pink etc."
"Fast forward to the makeover episode. The hairstyling team comes in and finds her hair unfitting for a model, so she needs to get a makeover and guess what? Her makeover obviously consists of a pixie cut and green hair to make her look like a 'punk fairy.'"
"My class mate cried throughout the entire process, so I guess the producers got the drama they wanted out of this."
Cue Anger
"There was a family in our neighborhood who was on a show here in Germany. One day, when accompanied by the camera crew, one of the daughters suddenly threw a screaming fit in public, which was totally unusual for her. When the mom was asked later what the f*k had happened, she said, for a tantrum you get 200 bucks extra."
– RayNooze
"A girl I went to school with was on 'My Super Sweet Sixteen'. She was always quiet but well-liked and the kids on that show were usually monsters so we were curious about how the episode would paint her."
"There was one scene where she was checking in on a vendor and they said something might not be finished in time for the party and she didn't have a meltdown or anything but she said something dramatic like, 'Oh no! That's going to ruin my whole birthday party!'"
"After the episode aired her friends who were with her said they did a couple of 'takes' because her first reaction was like, 'Oh, that sucks. Thanks for letting me know.'"
It appeared the majority of Redditors who vouched for a show's realistic portrayal of people on TV was Hoarders.
For Redditor azulweber, the circumstance was relatable.
"yeah my grandmother and her sister are both hoarders and i have no problem believing that it's real. i can't imagine someone who isn't a hoarder being willing to allow a show to do that to their home and belongings just for tv."
Sadly, the exploitation of a person's mental illness seems to make for must-see television.