How have you experienced adulthood?

Post Reply New Topic

Maybe you eat out too much? That's what you said in another topic... cooking at home is a lot cheaper than eating in restaurants or ordering food.

Do you have any idea how much the interest is on a mortgage? If you get a 30-year mortgage. Over 2/3 of that will be interest. Of that 30-years. You pay only 10 years on principal and the other 20 is interest. If you save up the money and wait. Instead of paying interest. Now you earn interest. It only took me 8-years to save the money to buy my house and 1/3 of that was interest "earned" from the bank.

You describe a stereotype - that's not imaginative. People with autism don't fit stereotypes. Your assumptions for both are wrong, because I'm both an indoor & outdoor worker -- a mix of science nerd, tech geek, clumsy-athlete, & awkward construction worker who can stick weld, work a Kubota mid-size tractor, but not a butch-type of female (hate guns, but have 2 small limb saws that I call my "chainsaws" -- have cut 3 small trees down with them), am natural, feminine, without interest in makeup, rugged clothes for practicality, but too small for manufacturers of men's rugged clothes so have to buy boy sizes. No one makes true work clothes for women my size. I went through a long-skirt phase when I first started learning computer languages. Still wear them to school sometimes, but only when it is hot. Is too cold now.

You probably have more to your personality & talents/interests than just tech gadgets also, or I could be wrong. Maybe women are just more complex than men (even with HFA), which is why men frequently are befuddled by women when they try to extrapolate a female's personality based on a small subset of traits.

The only thing on that list I've experienced is romance and even that is very far and few in between since I keep my human interaction rate relatively low.

I've seen many unemployed men pull women like it was nothing o-o

I have had more romantic partners than average, but mainly by not contradicting someone's illusions. I made no progress with two I was strongly attracted to. My last was definitely the best, but it wasn't enough to hold us together when my life fell apart. At least, that made me picky enough to not get into a new disaster here.
My marriage was to a business partner as well - very risky, statistically, and a career-killer for me, also leaving me with PTSD.
I didn't want children until I could support them without reducing their natural inheritance. So, my only "children" are technical advances that have yet to pay off.
I had a vocation, but had to "keep the day job" - a motley collection of projects and gigs.
I have a house, but only because I was forced into it by a sleep disorder exacerbated by a landlady. It is a very mixed blessing.
I have usually had at least one friend, but seldom several.

I have been moderately depressed most of my life, severely so for about a decade total, occasionally suicidal.
I have dropped out of high school, and then been invited to lecture to graduating engineers.
I have won a world championship in technology (which helped precipitate my divorce) but was "too far ahead."
I have been in a cult. After two years in a house with up to twenty other residents, I stopped feeling like "the new boy." I had been there longer than anyone when I checked.
I have stored my gear and gone on the road looking for a new home twice. Both took two months. I used a bicycle tour the first time, and car-camping the second. I did vehicle repairs en-route both times.
I have successfully taught classes from time to time.
I have given massage treatments at an expensive spa, and gotten good tips.
I have had prophetic dreams, and astral-projected once.
I have meditated deeply enough to see the path to enlightenment as a continuum.
I have kept my consumption of resources down to the world average, much lower than my neighbours.
I have tried to help.

I imagine they were not socially awkward though.

I have known two smart NT women who for some reason were with men who couldn't follow a conversation, just interjecting random remarks from time to time. One had driven out a very nice man to get her house; the other left her boyfriend to join an actual harem in Jordan.

I won't be tackling whether or not these things actually fulfill the meaning of what adulthood truly should be. I'll rather talk of these individual bullet points.

I have my own house. I've had a number of romances but never had been married. Don't have kids. Most of my few friends have their own lives and as much as we care and respect each other, I don't fit in their schedules anymore since I'm still a single man while they have families, spouses or whatever that puts a whole world between us.

Most of the time I don't care about these things. Sometimes I feel like I must be missing something, as if these things would really be the ultimate goal for a human on this planet, but that's just for a brief moment before I sense it all as a huge illusion. There are pros and cons attached to every little decision one makes and certainly these decisions don't apply to everybody out there. For one, the overdebated matters on why one should seek happiness alongside a so-called "better half" strikes me as pure fallacy. I know many married couples and by observing them combined to my own experience, I fail to see why one should feel perfectly happy all the time just for the reason of being a married person. As a matter of fact staying single looks a lot better a life path to me.

So lots of friends, marriage, kids, money, fame, a happy life... I don't pursue those things. Imho life has no intrinsic meaning and purpose and I don't try to overthink as to what kind of meaning I should be assigning to it. I try to stick to what it feels right and best for me without harm to others and that's hard enough an adult life statement to live by yet.

One specific point would be the career thing. To cut it short, I don't care about my career - I refer to it simply as "job". It's not a road towards personal growth. I don't even envy people who think of themselves as super-achievers who are able to go through the most unimaginable lengths to "fulfill their destinies" - whatever they think their destinies would be. Imo, there's but one destiny for a living creature on this world so one should just focus on the journey and experience rather than some abstract goal such as absolute happiness because if you feel like that happens to you, you're completely delusional. Careers don't make us better persons, don't make us smarter and don't fulfill human hearts. They make us better at what we do just so we can serve others - most times greedier, more competitive or more competent people than we are ourselves in our social roles. One can feel like is growing as a person because is earning more money or assigned more responsibility to or both, but that's simply how justifies his/her life and why should keep walking that same path.

A last curious point: when I was struggling against a severe crisis of depression some years ago, those bullet points from the original post used to pop up in my head unannounced, all the time. Needless to say, that just made me feel as the worse of all creatures. What I'm trying to say here is, to pursue true happiness will rather probably make people very unhappy just by they thinking of it.

I've achieved all those.
Some more than once.

Since I wrote down a budget and calculated everything I spend money on I've found it a lot easier. Not sure I could afford a house either though. They're so damn expensive now!

Good point. When you have time to keep score, you are not fully involved in the play. Happiness is not a goal, it is a dynamic state. It does not come with any of those achievements if they are sought for the wrong reasons. After reaching any goal, you need another, even if you are dying.

To buy a house, I moved to an area with a declining population, expecting to devise my own employment. It cost $15k, and only needed paint.

Bless you, you’re funny.

Congratulations! And thanks for going through the trouble of reading my long post in its entirety. Cheers!

1. Romance Patchy. One big disaster, one possibly missed oportunity whioch instead became lifelong friend and honourary sister, and eventually success as part of a polyamorous relationship
2. Marriage Not married and marriage law does not have any recognition for poly situations
3. Children No and don't want
4. Career A success, long term employment and avoiding chronic high stress posts
5. Home Ownership Yes thanks to 4
6. Friends Yes, very small number and very high quality.

I agree that conversation with friends or family with kids can be tedious and awkward; however, I just can’t see a stable community without the cornerstones of family and work. It also seems to me that in the absence of meaningful employment most people become depressed and directionless, substract friends and romance, and most people think their life or life itself becomes meaningless. I see the benchmarks as simply cornerstones of how the middle class has organized itself in industrialized countries. I’m curious did you feel “worse of all creatures” because you felt that all these benchmarks are an illusion and not worth striving for?

Yes, they can be owned too. I don't mind renting, though.