COLUMN: Aging Aggie shares wisdom with youth
Two weeks from the day I wrote this column I will be 24 years old. That is approximately 24 percent of a century old: I refuse to tell you how long it took me to figure that out.
There is great reason I bring this up, and not just because I recently realized I am the same age as Aaron Carter. He should throw a party for me. It would be the party of the month – no, the party of the year.
I looked up some conveniently pre-crunched numbers and found the average age of college graduates in the United States is 25. The common traditional college student can graduate by 21: In fact, due to skewed numbers, that is actually the most-graduated age in the country.
So here I am, three years past a traditional number and merely 12 months shy of the dividing line with semesters yet to go.
Translation: It turns out I am old.
Many of the classmates I coexist with are 18 years old. The stale stench of their prom night perfume is just barely going away. They still think One Direction is inspiring and they know next to nothing about French Toast Crunch. It is like we come from different worlds, and most definitely different Nickelodeons, and it gets harder by the day to tell the wise from the weird. Not that I have anything against my more spry constituents, it is just hard for me to respect the judgment of someone who wasn’t even alive for the first Michael Jordan retirement.
Luckily, I am not entirely alone. There are other socially elderly students like me, and they generally aren’t hard to find as we Pierce Hawthornes of the campus tend to naturally gravitate toward each other. We have conversed and we have a few thoughts we wish to send your way.
First and foremost, stop dating things. All of you young’uns and your boyfriends, your girlfriends, your plant friends, your digi-friends, your twisty-friends and twirly-friends. Wherever we see you it is always in the act of being far too intertwined in another person’s person. Please stop. We are just trying to eat lunch. If we wanted a reenactment of a “Dawson’s Creek” episode we would call James Van Der Beek, as he isn’t up to all that much anyway.
Next – yes, we know what Snapchat is and no, we don’t care about it. Snapping a photo that will simply go away in ten seconds? That’s just the exact opposite of a Polaroid. That’s not interesting at all. And for the record, we are just as technologically savvy as you in the Geek Squad era. I’d even maintain we are more so as we are capable of doing a whole lot more than leaving Facebook statuses of how sore our shoulders are from doing nothing.
The next point is incredibly important: Your roommates aren’t as interesting as you think. Sure, social media may mark you as “besties” – what does that mean anyway? Is it a cereal? – but believe me, there will come a day when their countenance becomes as demonic as overcooked Toaster Strudel. You may deny me now, but I know enough to know emotional separation is just an unwashed dish away. I don’t care how many “Beto’s runs” you have.
This somewhat brings me to my next point – slapping “late night” in f
ront of a given activity doesn’t automatically make it cool and we don’t need a photo gallery to fill up our news feeds every waking day. You can go to Wal-Mart, eat a bagel, surgically remove a wart or Snapchat a hunger game all you want and no matter what time of day such events exist, it will still merely be a thing you did that isn’t near interesting enough to be in a “Seinfeld” episode, which means it isn’t interesting at all.
In conclusion, we embrace that you live life, find yourself, surround your being with people who enrich your emotions and give you laughter. We smile at your off-beat antics and creative mind. We are confused at your tie-dye sweat pants but accept them all the same. We simply ask you do it in a way that is not forced upon our personal interactions every moment of every day. We have lives just like you and wish to be free to be ourselves while conforming to you on our own time and ability.
Or, in old people speak: Keep it down up there. We’re trying to cross-stitch in peace.
I think I’m getting the hang of this being old thing after all.
– Steve Schwartzman is a senior in communication studies and linguistics. When he isn’t trying too hard to make people laugh he is usually watching sports, watching 90’s cartoons or experiecing all things Aggie Life. Got a good idea for Steve to rant about? Hit him up at steve.schwartzman@aggiemail.usu.eud or on Twitter @SchwartZteve