WTF?!

OK, I know that I hate feeling like I'm old as much as anyone, but it has its good points--no stressing about whether or not our fake IDs will get us turned away at the door, we make our own money and can therefore make really stupid choices like spending a week's paycheck on a pair of shoes without thinking about what our parents will say about the credit card bill, and we don't answer to anyone but ourselves (and maybe our roommates...) regarding what we eat or how messy we are.

Of course, I also thought that a nice byproduct of aging would be maturity, and yet there are some advancements we just don't seem to be able to make. For example, what the hell is wrong with people that they don't understand the basic principle of not going out of their way to hurt someone's feelings? WHY would you ever tell someone that a close friend of theirs said something bad about them? You must know that it will never actually help any situation. This isn't fun gossip--you're actually telling someone something that will only make them feel like crap. On what planet does that seem like something that a mature, intelligent human being should be doing?

Along the same vein--don't tell brides you hate their fabric, don't tell a friend that your life situation is harder than their life situation, don't make yourself look like the guest of honor at a party's best friend if you're not, and don't ignore or talk over your friends when they're talking just because you don't feel like listening to them vent.

People grow and people change and sometimes that sucks, because those of us with old friends know that nothing beats reminiscing with someone who can sing color war cheers with you or bond over some elementary school teacher's bad haircut.