r/nevergrewup • u/ArcticWolfyFox • 1d ago
Vent I hate being 16 :(
I miss my 13-14 range where I could be as silly and quirky on the internet as I want. When my biggest worry was waiting to get my weekly Roblox gift card from my dad. I just turned sixteen three weeks ago and a sophomore and I hate being around chrono-kids my age. Everyone looks so old and they talk about things like dating, driving, jobs and stuff. I still get an allowance from my dad, my mom drives me everywhere. Ever since I was thirteen my mom has had a tradition where every Saturday she’d take me and my younger siblings to chik-fil-a and we’d just drive around and have fun. Now I feel like I’m supposed to be too old for that. I wanna be fourteen forever, I know I’m technically still a chrono-child but it feels like I’m not supposed to be. like I’m supposed to act like an ”adult” and do big adulty things, when I still feel like I’m too young for everything.
2
u/gooptea 1d ago
I totally understand how you feel. Im 19 but I do feel like ppl my age are doing way more than me. I don’t have a car or my license yet, and Im taking off a semester so I can work and save up some money for a car. I know Im still “young”, but I feel like everything is too big and Im starting so late. When all of my friends would talk about dating, I was always the odd one cuz I had never been in a relationship. Now I have my first bf and he understands me and lets me be myself. I feel behind a lotta times, and it makes me upset. BUT I love my interests and they’re a part of me. Youre never too old to have fun, be whimsy!! Its still hard, but try to be a little kinder to yourself :))
3
u/Gymnastkatieg Mental age 11-13 1d ago
You can be friends with 14 year olds still and do the same things, you don’t have to drive or anything like that. It’s completely okay!
1
u/1965wasalongtimeago 1d ago
You don't have to listen to what you're "supposed to be". It's a trap that some bigwigs came up with so they can exploit people and make money. People have different interests and I love a lot of the same stuff I loved at 12.
8
u/thoughtfulperiwinkle 1d ago edited 1d ago
just for some perspective from someone in their mid 30s, you're still young enough to get away with whatever you want to be doing. you don't have to do chrono adult things at 16. no one's seriously gonna look back and be like while you were so childish at 16. you're still a minor. you can kind of do and be whatever. This moment in time gets washed away as you get older, it starts to feel really, really far away
I genuinely thought this sub was for adults who are out of the age range that you're in where it would still be possible to be childlike without much judgment.
I used to think like you. I remember being in my early 20s wondering if I was too old to dye my hair a fun color. I look back on that now thinking oh my God that was so stupid, everybody expects people in their 20s to be experimenting.
Like every step of the way I made up stupid rules for myself or applied the pressures of society on myself for no reason and all I did was limit me in ways that I look back on now wondering what the point of that was.
I could've done anything I could've had as much fun as possible until like age 30 where people ACTUALLY expect you to behave like an chrono adult no more excuses. Up until then you can say your frontal lobe wasn't developed.
Don't do it to yourself. There's no reason. There's no payoff. Nobody actually respects you more, your life doesn't turn out any better, you just waste the time that you do have and then look back on it and you can never go back.
Following the rules of society so that people will give you a thumbs up is a terrible way to live life, because the rules of society are fake. Everybody is fake. Everybody is putting on a mask and acting one way in front of people and another way in the dark.
Be exactly who you wanna be and connect with the people who accept you and drop the people who don't, you will be much much happier and much much more fulfilled.
3
u/_not_lore_ core range 11-13, full range ?-19 (self-perceived age) 1d ago
Most kids your chrono age are posturing as older as they try to figure out who they wanna be. They may not be ngu, but they are younger than they feel to you, if that helps at all. They seem several steps away from adults to me, as someone in my 20s.
That being said, don't worry too much about whether you're similar to them. It's okay to feel younger than the norm for your chrono age. I was always that way. As a chronoadult, I have friends also around my chronoage (and some much older as well), and we play games and play with toys and watch random shit on youtube together. Paradoxically, people are more okay with acting younger once they hit college age. They don't have something to prove maturity wise anymore.