Hindsight is 20/20 for sure. Once nostalgia is involved, memories get clouded. And nostalgia and clouding set in as soon as the second passes. The things we loved to play with or hold onto in our past of course mark our history but often.... when we come across them in the present we sometimes realize... meh... they weren't so hot. We all can get taken in by shiny baubles, it's human nature. Let's take a look back.
Redditor u/ILoveTicTac wanted to compare notes about what wonderful things we loved in the past that maybe didn't stay as wonderful with age.... everything can't be a fine wine, so they asked.... What seemed nice when you were a child, but when you grew up turned out to not be so nice?Round & Round....
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Getting dizzy. We had an uncle who was tall and strong and would spin us around one by one. We couldn't get enough. I remember after my spin, I'd just laugh as I couldn't keep my balance and watch the world spin. Now, I avoid getting dizzy like the plague.
Good Night.
Staying up all night.
I used to want to stay awake all night and play video games.
Now if I'm awake past midnight, it takes me 2 or 3 days to recover.
4AM is like the freaking event horizon of a black hole.
"wayment"
A popular girl complimented me on my shoes. My mom had just gotten them for me from Old Navy and I thought they were really cool.
"Were they really expensive?" she asked. "Were they like..." (she dropped her voice) "twenty dollars?"
I smiled back, thinking it was cool that she must be responsible enough to buy her own clothes, cos I certainly didn't in grade seven.
I nodded and said "they were $19.99, yeah." She smiled and walked away and I was so excited to have been complimented by a person who was not only POPULAR but also A GIRL, that I wrote about it on my Harry Potter calendar and told my mom that "the cool kids liked my shoes."
It was earlier this year that I thought back on this nice memory and went "wayment".
Adulting....
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Being a grown-up.
We all do, friend. Those internal struggles don't go away. You just learn how to work with them and understand them. They are a part of you. And that's ok.
Easier Days....
Living on a farm. I begged and begged my mom to buy a farm and have horses etc. I have never even liked to literally get my hands dirty. Though a horse would be nice, I was cured when someone moved into the neighboring farm and everything they owned was dirty, and the kids always had to help out with something on the farm.
PAY for it?!
The drug talks at school would make you think that someone is going to jump you on the street and forcibly inject you with heroin. All that "they'll offer you free drugs to get you hooked and spend all of your money" - Where were all the free drugs when I was growing up, huh? I had to PAY for my weed.
Through the Screen.
I grew up in an extremely religious community that I only later found out had a lot of cult-like features. There were a lot of things that I thought were normal or even kinda great when I was a kid. Turns out television screen isn't actually the devil's device that it uses to enter your body.
Return to Sender....
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Getting mail addressed to me.
Yep. Since the advent of email, texting, and social media the only mail I ever get anymore is bills, junk, and more bills.
"YEA NO SCHOOL!!!!!"
Snowstorms.
As a kid you're all "YEA NO SCHOOL!!!!!" And you get bundled up and go outside and make snow angels and have snowball fights and go sledding and run around the whole damn day and come inside and mom has a grilled cheese sandwich and bowl of tomato soup.
As an adult, "OH DAAAMN I HAVE TO SHOVEL THE DRIVEWAY AND THE DAMN SIDEWALK?!?!" And then having to re-shovel the end of the driveway when the plows come by and cover it up. And if you go out in your car there's a bunch of poopheads who ONLY scrape the snow off the front windshield and the others who ignore the fact that road conditions aren't suitable for going 80 freaking mph anymore.
Stay Home!
Going on long outings or weekend trips to the beach or lake. As a kid I didn't have to worry about anything!!! Just take my damn self and my bathing suit and have a blast. Eat when the food was ready and get in the car and pass out on the way home and wake up the next morning in your bed somehow.
Now, as a parent you gotta do ALL the things. The packing, shipping, cleaning, unpacking, cooking, carrying the kids from the car to the house... it's exhausting. Never thought about that as a kid. And hey, I'll keep doing it because my kids have fun and so do we but man... there's a lot of crap that goes with those trips haha.
Mooned.
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Moon shoes. Those damn things almost killed me like 20 times, but I loved them when I was child and was oblivious to just how dangerous they are.
It was the dream.
Eating a whole cake in one sitting. It was the dream. I should have learned from Matilda that it was a nightmare.
My whole life, cakes were reserved for birthdays and special occasions. See a yummy cake in the store? Maybe you can get it on your birthday in two months.
A couple of weeks ago I realized that I am a full grown adult and I can buy cake whenever the hell I want to for whatever reason or no reason at all.
It has been a good couple of weeks.
playing grown up...
I used to love to play "office" and shuffle around papers etc like I was at a job. Now that I actually do work in an office... not so much fun lol.
I used to play schoolteacher as a kid who thought it would be the most fun in the world. I've been doing it for several years for real now, and while I do enjoy it, it's not the same kind of fun. To remind myself, I keep hanging on my classroom wall a photograph of the 6 year old me explaining something on a child's blackboard.
Lake Tales....
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I swam in some bodies of water as a kid that seemed fine but looking back, adult me would never get in that water.
Just the other day I drove past a "lake" I used to play in as a kid (in Florida). It's more like a swamp. No in flow, no outflow. Just a stagnant pond/swamp. It's a miracle we didn't die of brain amoeba.
Send a Stamp....
Getting mail.
If available, get the Delivery notifications for mail (USPS has it). That sends you an email every day of what mail you are getting. That way you can know when it is time to pack the car and head to the woods to avoid those bills.
Spiked.
High heels.
It's not that they're not nice, just not practical for my daily life.
I always wanted to grow up faster so I could steal some of my mom's really pretty heels. I thought they looked like the prettiest, classiest things and couldn't wait to wear some. Oh, my God, the first time I wore a pair, I about wrecked my knee and twisted my ankle. Nevermind the absolute agony my heels were in by the end of the day. Forget that noise.
The Dairy Queen.
Unlimited ice cream with no one telling me to stop before my stomach hurts.
My most adult moment so far other than getting married, divorced, married again, and having 2 children, is when I decided that I'm an adult dammit and I can buy I chocolate shake AND a banana split from Dairy Queen if I want to.
I now know my dairy limit.
Gets old pretty quickly.
Eating fast food and ramen noodles when you want. Gets old pretty quickly.
Found this out the hard way at university. Looking back, I think that's one of the reasons why my mental health took a turn for the worst.
$$$$ Spent.
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Earning Money.
Don't get me wrong, I like earning money just like everyone else! But it sucks that the majority of a paycheck can't be spent on Nerf guns and LEGO's.
Rock Lobster.
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As a child, I loved looking at the lobsters in the grocery store. I thought they sold them to be pets. Imagine my horror when I found out they are sold to be boiled alive and eaten.
My dad brought home lobsters one time. As a kid, it was a magical day. We selected the lobsters, brought them home, and got to play with the forbidden creatures from the grocery store for a while on the kitchen floor. Then, we were sent out back, because it was the 90's and that's what happened as a kid, and when we came back, dinner was ready.
It took longer than I'd like to admit to connect those dots.
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But we should also be prepared and ready to ask the right questions to have a leg up on the competition.
"What is THE best question to ask on a job interview?"
A company's history or information about a past employee were suggested subjects appropriate for questioning.
Prior Knowledge
"When you were interviewing here, what would you have liked to know before you joined?"
"This worked for me. I asked my interviewer a question about how she had personally dealt with a company policy she had just explained. She bragged about her stellar adherence to the policy. I nodded my approval. I got the job."
A Previous Employee
"One that has always gone over well for me:"
"What were some qualities that the previous employee in this role brought to the job that you would like to see carried forward?"
"Another good thing to do is research the company you are interviewing with and you can ask things about what they may be involved in or you could drop that while reading about the company, you wondered this."
Hypothetical questions were suggested as helpful examples of inquiry.
Indicators Of How Companies Treat Employees
"A question that landed me a job once was: 'If I asked your direct reports about your management style, what do you think they'd tell me?' Stumped a hiring manager and he emailed me personally to tell me about it, no one ever asked him that question but got the job.
"In my current interviews I'm asking 'what did your company do for its employees during [the virus] to improve their day to day, work life balance, etc.' and I ask 'Is there anything your company adopted during [the virus] that they plan to keep post [the virus]?"
"These questions give a lot of insight into whether a company treated their employees well."
Past Performance & Adjustments
"If we were currently sitting in my 1 year review, what would I have done in this year for you to say I excelled in my role?"
"If I could snap my finger right now and change anything about your job or the company, what would it be and why?"
The following questions about a prospective company may not be answered from initial digging on their website.
Measure Of Success & Career Trajectories
"How is success measured in this role?"
"What are some possible career trajectories within the company that could stem from this position?"
Being A Solution
"Ask them what is the biggest problem you can solve for them in your first six months with the company. Similar to 'don't think of a purple hippo,' this forces them to imagine you succeeding in the position."
Simply The Best
"Who is your best employee and why is he/she the best?"
"You will then face 2 situations mostly:"
"panicking CEO who can't answer you 'Bob who works 17 hours a day for a slice of bread' so the fear in their faces must be a big nono for you"
"entusiast CEO who actually follow their business and can tell you who is an added value for the company and why."
– ThePiz91
My experiences with job interviews are different than others seeking work in office environments.
Having had a years-long career as a dancer, my "interview" was the dance audition, where hopefuls dance in small groups of people at a time after learning a routine and then awaiting their fate after the panel evaluates their performances.
The question I may or may not have asked in such a scenario earlier in my career was: "Did I make the cut?"
I did not make the cut. And I learned never to ask that again.
I remember the worst date I ever had. My biggest regret is that I stayed for the entire thing. I should've left as soon as I realized this was not going well, which was basically at hello. But he was paying so I drank, a lot. I'll keep names and dates to myself to protect the innocent.
0/10
Big Brother Reaction GIF by Big Brother After DarkGiphy"Went to brewery, date said I had hairy arms and that meant I was horny, said "you look really awful in this light" and then tried to dig out of that hole by saying in his native language that was a term of endearment long term couples said to each other. 0/10 did not date again."
Lucky 13?
"My wife wanted to plan our 13th wedding anniversary. I was excited because usually, I plan it. She bought us some new disc golf discs and after a quick supper, we went to play. We hadn't played in forever. We were laughing and I had a great time. She served me with divorce papers and told me that the date was a test to see if she still had feelings for me. I also learned that she was having an affair that started well before our anniversary."
- rmorlock
Two Hours from Home
"Not necessarily a date but a person I was dating invited me to his parent's house for the afternoon. He wanted to introduce me to them and show me the house he grew up in. I thought it was super sweet and had no problems going. He was also in the middle of moving and needed to pick up a few things, so it really didn't seem that unusual."
"Yeah, we got there and it was awful. His entire family was there. They traveled from hours away too. This was not just meeting the parents, it was meeting the ENTIRE family. Even worse? At some point, this idiot told his parents that he had proposed. We had been dating TWO months. I spent the entire afternoon dumbfounded and just playing along."
"We were two hours from home and I had no cell service, no way to leave at all. We ended up spending the afternoon brainstorming wedding ideas and planning an Alaskan honeymoon that his parents planned to gift us. His brother even called to say congratulations! We drove back to his apartment in silence. When we got there, I got in my car and left, didn't even bother grabbing my stuff. Weirdest experience ever. I have no idea how he broke it to his parents that we weren't getting married."
You're Cut Off!
"Got set up on a blind date once between mutual friends. She shows up to the restaurant already a little tipsy, orders multiple appetizers and only takes like one or two bites from each one. Then she proceeds to order 3 or 4 more drinks and is visibly drunk at this point. She gets up and says she's going to the bathroom and staggers off. About 15-20 minutes go by so I try to call her several times but no answer."
"Finally I decide to pay the check and just leave. About 2 hours later I'm sitting at home and I get a call from an unknown number. It's the police department. She was picked up on a DUI on her way home after she ditched me and gave the cops my number to see if I could go bail her out!"
- mox44ah
Sorry?
Bbc Three Idk GIF by BBCGiphy"Well, I gave this answer on a different topic, but it ties in with this. We were out on a date, we had been seeing each other for a while, close to a year maybe. She gets a phone call. Suddenly she looks destroyed. Her fiancé had just died in a motorcycle accident."
What in the world? I mean how can we ever expect to pair off with the dating pool being inundated with liars and nut jobs? I'm going to delete my apps.
Girl, Bye.
Sassy Beyonce GIFGiphy"Had a girl openly flirt with the bartender in front of me. She says she wasn't. But handing him her own phone and asking for his contact info in front of her date seems like it to me."
Crazy!
"Came out from a movie, late at night, and date's Camaro was stolen. Apparently, he called his WIFE (that I did not know he had) and let her know where he was and what happened. She showed up and realized he was on a date! She started chasing ME around the parking lot telling me she was going to kill me. Saved by the cops who showed up just in time to take the auto theft report."
Hey Mom
"Met a girl at a country bar one night in my 20s. We were both pretty drunk but hit it off pretty good. Ended up getting her number and we agreed we'd go on a real date. Fast forward to the date, she gets in my vehicle and... she looks almost identical to my mom. I was mortified. I was polite and we went for lunch where I found out she also had a boyfriend she "wasn't sure if she was into". Never talked to her again."
- SgtGo
Liars...
"When I was in college many years ago, before the advancement of cell phones and social media, I was chatting with a girl I met on a BBS who lived on Long Island, NY. I was 18 at the time, but lied and said I was 22 because she said she was 25. We spent a few weeks emailing each other, as well as calling each other."
"We even exchanged pics. When we finally met up, things blew up. Turns out we both lied about our ages: She was really 33, and lied because she thought she looked younger. She admitted she sent a college photo to me. We still had dinner together, but it was awkward as hell. We never spoke again."
Doubles
Kill Me Now Season 1 GIF by FriendsGiphy"It was a double date. She was more interested talking to the other girl throughout the whole thing. Found out later from the other guy that his girl cheated on him with my date."
Ummm... I think I'm just going to stay single. That is a handful of crazy. Why can't people just be honest? I swear the search for love warps people's brains. Be careful out there people.
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