Being a few years behind in growing up

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I don't know where YOU live, but in the US, it is illegal for you to have the ability to get drunk until 21. Some people actually have it as a celebration. They go out for drinks, and possibly get drunk, at 21!!

I feel like I'm both ahead and behind others in my age group. When it comes to being mature, responsible and productive I feel like I'm a few years ahead of my peers and most colleagues for example think that I'm a few years older than I really am. However, when it comes to social interactions, my feelings and forming relationships I feel like I'm years behind. I also hold onto the child within and have many childish interests and often do childish things in my private life.

Um....While I can't say I am behind my peers too terribly much, my few peers are rather atypical.

One of my very best friends is a 35 year old male who lives alone and dresses in costumes and plays with dolls... ... ...He is more advanced than me in the sense that he CAN drive (rides a bike by choice)...um...he did go to college...etc....I guess I am more advanced than him in the sense that I have um...dated more... ......but it seems we are relatively on par with each-other...maturity wise...

Compared to the average 33 year old female, I am distinctly childlike...and there are lots of normal milestones I have not passed, and don't really expect to.....driving....college(i tried though)...marriage(am a domestic partner though)...kids....etc...this kinda makes me worry a little about what it will be like when I am old. I have had a reallyhard time holding things together...likesay housework and organizing things...etc....There are ways in which emotional maturity would be very helpful...But i suppose that there are NTs out there my age who are just as foolish as me....in their own ways.

It seems like I was more on par with my peers when I was younger for some reason....or the gap was less noticeable....the thing is that I stopped mentally maturing at a certain age...and also it seems as though the ways in which I am behind are more noticeable when compared with people who are younger than me or my age....as opposed to people who are older than me......I wonder why that is....

When I was 16 I would reenact Star Wars with the younger kids in my neighborhood........I was Han Solo by the way and I did have my very own plastic blaster .

I look very young for my age. People don't believe I am almost 44.

In some ways, I was advanced for my age. I was academically ahead, reading several years above grade level. However, I was also socially behind.

I am fortunate, however. I have held my current job for over six years, and love it.

Aside from not having a driver's license and not being married or in a relationship, I am fairly mature.

Over here, it has swung both ways. As a kid, people told my parents how mature I was, how they raised me right, all that junk. When kids would be jumpoing and running around, I'd be reading, I never screwed around. Whenever I had an "interest" going on, I was called the "Scientist," when I was a believer in God, I was derided constantly by my family for taking it too seriously. Wasn't anything I said that made them say that, just the fact that I took EVERYTHING very seriously.

NOW, however, I am 22, and I'm getting complaints that I should be driving, should have a girlfriend, and why the hell don't I get out. At 22, it seems like people should be screwing off just as much as they did in high school, lol. I've overheard my dad express worry about my situation, falling behind was his worry. "Something's wrong with Johnny," whereas before it was always my brother he was worried about, now it's me...

In some ways I was developementally behind my peers in other areas I was ahead.
I wish I was kind of behind in getting old though...

Last edited by richie on 24 Aug 2008, 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, but most people in the U.S. drink at least a few years before age 21 regardless. I'm viewed as weird because I'm 19 and I still don't drink yet!

I've always felt like I'm behind my peers and thus I feel intimidated by people who are the same age as I am.

Here in the Netherlands most people start drinking at age 14 in secret. The official age that beer and other drinks with a low alcohol percentage are allowed is 16. It's 18 for the heavy stuff such as vodka and whisky. The age to start taking driving lessons is also 18. So that there is a huge difference in attitude with say the US. Here driving is seen as the thing for adults, but beer isn't.
Drinking here is heavily on the increase at the 13-18 age range whilst it's decreasing with adults. The reason for this is a whole new array of sweet drinks such as breezers wich taste pretty much the same as lemonade. Kids love sweet tasting things and alot like to get drunk so you get these kinds of problems.
The one thing that strikes me as insane in American low is that you can get send to a dangerous war at 18, whilst not being allowed to drink a beer until 21. What's more dangerous, enjoying a nice beer or getting shot at with a ak47 ?!

When it comes to me i've been a few years behind during most of my childhood. Sure i started drinking as a teenager and all. But i coud not possibly imagine myself driving a car at age 18. Both my brothers got theyr lisence a few months after they turned 18. At age 20 i could not imagine moving out of the house yet. I hadn't aquired alot of skills to live on my own yet. At age 21 ish i managed to catch up on all the things i had not been ready before. Getting my driving lisence a job an apartment etc. Now i can't imagine living without all these things.

From a parent's perspective, it's difficult to watch my 12 year old be so innocent for his age. He's such a nice kid, and I totally enjoy his innocence, but I also know that it's the very thing that possibly makes it difficult for him to mix with others his age. We are working on it when he says things that seem "naive," I'm trying to point out that if he says such things around us at home, it's fine, but it just makes his life harder if he says them in public. For example, if he talks about politics without really understanding the underlying principles, and more importantly, without understanding that other people may not share his point of view -- that's naive, and a topic that should be avoided (so that he doesn't get into an argument). Some day, he will OK with discussing such things, but for now, he's too naive to handle a conversation of this nature deftly.

I don't have much an opinion on this.

I've always been told that I think, act and certainly speak and write like a much older person. When I was a kid I felt more at home with adults than with other kids, and I hated it when adults talked "down" to me rather than as an equal. I was always academically advanced and I took my first college classes at 16 (all the other students were 18+).

On the other hand, at 20 I live with my parents, I've never had sex or a romantic relationship (I'm asexual, which makes romance extra-confusing, and sex just doesn't appeal), and I'm certainly not financially independent. I don't go out with friends since I don't really have any real-life friends. Except for school trips, I've never been away overnight without my parents or grandparents.

So I guess I'm kind of a mixed bag in this respect.

I always felt younger than my age group and 'naive' was what heard and hear until to day. "Grow up", " you're so childish" are the key words from people whom I had controntations with. Before I knew I had HFA I would reply that if I had grown up I wouldn't have been an artist today.

I always looked at my 4 year older brother who went to pubs at age 12 and played snooker or pool and other popular games with awe, even later when I stood next to him in the pub at age 17 I still ordered Coca-Cola (I felt younger, which I was but I felt I couldn't drink beer yet) while he drank beer. Anyways I always hated beer and the obligation that in order to be adult and fit in, one had to drink beer with someone). Sitting in the car next to him or next to my dad made me shrink a decade in maturity and age, that's how I felt with htem and with peers.

So, I grew up with much younger ages and felt comfortable with them. I still played with cowboy and Indian figurines, had my fort made out of wood, at age 15!! ! At school I was made fun of because of my immturity. Now in retrospect I feel regret, especially in my career as an artist.

I think had I had a more mature brain I would have been much further in the arts then what I AM now. I wnet to arts school, and chose for it but wasn't mature enough as my peers to understand photography classes and to really dig it and take up responsability for my own studies. despite my studies I am much more of a self taught painter, really.

By the time I was 30 I really understood I had to do something to make a living and really go inot it as a porfessional. I still struggle with survival and don't wnat to think how I will fare when I am really old. I always looked younger than I was, at least 5 years, but it something that runs in the family.

I bored and annoyed my family to death with asking a million questions about what happens in a movie: why this and such, etc. i still do that now...my partner is very patient, but others told me straight off saying I sound like a child. It's the deriosn that hurt my feelings. I am so intent on details and knowledge, thirsty for learning as I was when I was 8.

But most of the time I cannot grasp what they are saying verbally, I have to reread subtitles ( I have reread paragraphs in books in the same way before it goes through my brain) over and over before it make sense to me, and then I get confused by what is being said. here in peru i read Spanish subtitles with english speaking or vice versa.


Inisde I will always be the irresponsable 8 year old who didn't want to grow up! Kids draw to me like if I were a magnet and we can talk for hours, I cannot keep a conversation going with adults for longer than half an hour, and usally if it does it is me talking alone for hours.

I do not feel like I am 19 at all. I have a driver's permit but I don't drive yet, I've never been on a date before, I live with my parents and never had a formal job before. I love to watch cartoons and I've still kept a lot of my toys. I'm in college now but only because my high school won't take me back. Almost no one who first sees me believes I'm 19, they say I look about 15-16. If I dressed in baggy clothes, I could probably pass for 12
I am legally an adult, but otherwise I am a total kid

After reading all your post, I can say that I can definately identify with what you are all saying. I am 28 years old live with my parents, do not have a drivers lic., never really had a serious girlfriend. I am called a career student because school is all that I really do. I am considered weird by my family because of how I am. I am really smart, but sometimes I lack maturity. Although I am 28 people all the time think that I am still a teenager. Like when I go to buy a lotto ticket or something, I always get carded. One time when I went back to my high school to talk to one of my teachers, the new principle there stopped me in the hall wanting to know why I was out of class and where I should be. I showed him my visitors pass, and he looked kinda embarassed especially when I showed him my picture on the wall where I graduated in 1997, and this was in 2005. I really like kids. I like to play with them, I have 12 neices and nephews so there are always alot of kids around. We play Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii games. Every one of them love to come to my room because they think of it as a big arcade. We play Halo 3 alot together. Anyway, I am really glad that I am not the only one out there like this.

I know EXACTLY what you are all saying! I am 21 years old, but I feel like I'm going through the phases of a 15 or 16 year old-mentally. Right now, I got my driver's license 5 months ago, and I am about to apply for a job, and it feels like something a 16 year old would do- I mean, I never had a job, and I am finally going to get one this fall.

I figured out I was socially under-developed years ago. I have the social skills of probably of a 16 year old, and I'm 20. I beleive that's an obvious part of Autism in general. I'm often seen as a giant little kid, but that's also just my personality.