One of my teachers in middle school named Mr. Anderson told us a person's age had a big influence on our behavior. To illustrate this point, he said that if he decided to sit with us in the cafeteria the things we would talk about would be very different from the topics we usually discussed during lunch with our friends. I'm not sure how obsessed Mr. Anderson was with TV shows like The Transformers and Inspector Gadget but he was probably correct.
While having older friends and acquaintances can teach young people valuable lessons, it's important for them to be with their own kind too. In high school, there weren't many of my fellow students to hang out with but the elderly seemed to be everywhere. Gray-haired parishioners filled the pews during Mass and significant number of employees and customers at the small grocery store I worked for were old as well. I got along with some of them but the topics of conversation they brought up were very different from the concerns that were foremost on my mind. While I worried about fitting in and getting a date for the junior prom, they complained about every little ache and pain. If I was feeling sad from being bullied, they would simply say, “Smile. It can't be that bad.” To the young person who can't seem to find where he belongs in the world, it can be that bad. Then of course, I was constantly reminded how life was so much better back in their day.
Soon these people invaded my thoughts. I feared growing old and thought about death on a daily basis. I imagined a world 100 years from now with a student looking at distant images of our generation on a page in a history book. These thoughts weren't very natural for a teenager and it made my young life feel very tiresome. I'm not saying young people should live their days with carefree abandon but there needs to be balance. A teen's sense of his own mortality should make him appreciate life instead of dreading it.
Unfortunately, being surrounded by old people has continued to plague me all these years later. I could be sitting by myself at the library and an elderly woman will plunk herself down right next to me. At Mass, no person my age ever occupies the nearby pews. The friendships and acquaintances I do have with the elderly tend to be very one-sided. They get to discuss the movies, television shows and music they grew up with but God forbid I share anything from my generation. In fact, there is a whole list of “safe” and “unsafe” topics swirling around in my mind.
One septuagenarian friend named Richard has been growing increasingly grumpy despite a comfortable retirement and happy marriage. No matter the subject, he always seems to find a way to bring people down. In an e-mail on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, he started off by saying what a wonderful achievement it was. He then mentioned how the event briefly united the world. His commentary quickly went south: “I can't believe it's been a half century since that night. I'm 78 now and I'm disappointed that after a few more moon landings, we just quit. I expected by now that there would be a permanent base on the moon. But no, just some footprints and abandoned equipment. What a waste.”
Richard also sent a fascinating Youtube video of New York street scenes from 1911. He wrote: “Every single person and horse in this film have long since passed away. They were here, like we are, and had their moment in the sun. Captured on film, they will live on, unknown, for as long as the film images last. We now are having our moment in the sun, and 108 years from now we, like them, will be long gone.” Hmm. Do I need any more reminders of how short life is?
Over the years, I learned to put up with Richard's curmudgeonly commentary but recently, it got too personal. As he was waiting in a mutual friend's pickup tuck, Richard saw me walking along in the distance and said to everyone that I would never get married. I blew my chance at finding a wife in college and now I spent too much time being a mamma's boy. He added that I dressed like someone out of the 1956 Sears catalog and needed to get with the times. When I learned about his hurtful rant, I said nothing to him but decided to keep my distance from now on. Over the years, I had sacrificed a lot to maintain a friendship with Richard. Now he was throwing me under the bus for a good laugh. If this didn't underscore the importance of having caring relationships with people your own age, nothing else did.
My high school years were a little more than half over and even though I still longed for a girlfriend, there were no prospects in sight. One close friend of mine was dating a girl who just happened to have a friend named Jen. She wasn't seeing anyone at the time so they thought it might be a good idea to set me up with her. Of course, I asked my friend the usual questions: “What was she like? Was she cute?” In the days before smart phones and social media, photographs of people weren't always handy so I had to meet her in real life to find out. In fact, I didn't even know what my friend's girlfriend looked like either.
The plan was to meet Jen, my friend and his girlfriend at his house. Was this a double date? Did I need to dress up? Were we going out somewhere? He was pretty vague about what the night would entail. To make a good impression and just to be on the safe side, I decided to wear a nice sweater. When I arrived at my friend's house, everyone was hanging out in the cellar. Among the heater and exposed pipes was a make-shift TV room where two girls waited for us. One had brown hair and a somewhat athletic build and the other was blonde with glasses and very overweight. I quietly asked my friend, “Which one is mine?” It was the overweight blonde, of course.
I was way overdressed because we were just going to watch a movie on his VCR. Jen wore a loose-fitting wrinkled shirt with tight gray sweatpants that accentuated her huge thighs. I had reservations about this but was still willing to give her a chance and see where the evening would go. Everyone wanted to watch the 1990 cinematic gem, House Party starring Kid 'n Play. This wouldn't be my first choice...third choice...or 100th choice but I decided to just go along with it to make everyone happy. My friend pressed play on the VCR and I sat in awkward silence as they all laughed at tasteless jokes. There were references to garden hoes, and a graphic scene of coitus interruptus among other things. Did I say this wouldn't even be my 100th choice for the evening's entertainment?
There were a few times when I tried engaging Jen in conversation but she really didn't have much to say. It was clear we were two very different people with not much in common. I wondered why the heck my friend ever tried to set me up with her. Shortly after the movie ended, I headed for home. Did this awful experience count as my very first date? It certainly didn't feel like it. In my mind, we were just casually hanging out in a basement for a few hours.
The next day, my friend asked what I thought of Jen. I let him know that I just wasn't interested in her. Of course, he later reported this news to his girlfriend and she thought I was a jerk for rejecting her friend. I really didn't care what she thought because I had to stay true to myself. This girl gave me no indication that she had anything in common with me regarding my faith, hobbies, or personality and I wasn't going to be guilted into a relationship that was doomed to fail.
The whole incident reminds me of one stand up comic's routine about blind dates. He said that after a certain age, it gets much harder to find eligible singles so his friends try to set him up with the only available women they can find. To make these potential suitors sound more appealing, his friends say things like, “She has so much in common with you. She breaths air. You breath air. What a coincidence. It was meant to me.” While an extreme exaggeration, it certainly has a ring of truth to it.
Over the summer, my friend and his girlfriend went to a water park with Jen and her new boyfriend. He said Jen was all over her date and she made an embarrassing display of herself. They were sexually active and just couldn't keep their hands off each other. I thought to myself, “If I had low standards, that could have been me.” Interestingly, he apologized for trying to set me up with Jen in the first place. I didn't hold a grudge because he was influenced by the desire to make his girlfriend happy. I just wish he had exercised a little more judgment in choosing a possible girlfriend for me because sometimes when people think they are helping, they're not helping at all.
