How to tell if you’re an adult

When you’re 15, 25 felt old, seasoned and most definitely adult status. Even your 19 year old baby sitter was so adult with her boyfriend and car and she knew everything about the world. Time passes, you hit 25, 26, 27 and keep waiting for the ‘I’m an adult’ moment to hit.

The unfortunate thing is that you are treated like an adult before actually feeling like one, thrust into responsibility you didn’t really want. It’s hard to know if you have hit adult stage for real or still faking it. Here are some helpful hints to know if you’re an adult, if you answer yes to at least 2 of these you have hit adult status.

Bills

Not only do you have a lot of bills, but you pay them on time. Gone are the days of getting a bill, complaining about the bill, sticking it on the fridge and doing absolutely nothing about the bill until its due date. Now you receive bills, jump on BPay and pay it off straight away. Or if you are a super adult, it’s already direct debited out because you know you’ll actually have money in your bank account.

Calling your parents to say hi

For years your parents called at irritating times like 8am on a Saturday morning or right in the middle of your Sunday sesh and you’d be like ‘I’ll call you back later.’ Later being in like 3 weeks. Then as an adult, you realise that before your parents were mum and dad, they were people, with first names, they did things and went out and had their own lives. Suddenly they morph into people you can call and talk to and ask advice, because they will always pick up the phone they will always be there for you. (Unlike your mate Jenny who writes back after 4 days because she totally read your message and then forgot to respond till just now and you’ll be like god Jenny I don’t need advice on which dress to buy now that event was 3 days ago. Fuck!)

No more Kmart appliances

After your $7 Kmart blender breaks for the 11th time you realise you’re better than Kmart. You go to places like Harvey Norman now or those big home living super-centres that have the expensive linen stores in them with at least 400 prams in your way. Maybe you’ve even invested in a Dyson, which is possibly the highest level of adult possible. Perhaps you’ve noticed that everything at IKEA is slightly shit or an even bigger step, you no longer look at free things on the side of the road.

You have an answer when people say ‘What do you do?’

Having stifled your internal eye rolls after graduating high school or university as every relative ever utters that irritating phrase ‘so what are you doing now?’ The response you want to utter being, ‘ I just did a whole bunch of shit, so now I am doing nothing. Thats what I do, I do nothing.’ Instead you give a half arsed ‘Oh you know just looking for work at the moment.’ You’re answers get vaguer and vaguer until people just don’t ask anymore or instead switch to harassment about partners/babies/houses and it kind of continues in that cycle till you tick at least one of the boxes on the life form. But now, as an adult, you can be like ‘I do this.’ And people say ‘Cool.’ And thats kind of it because no one really cares about anyones job. But yay, you’re an adult with a job.

Going to bed is your favourite thing

Doing things is the worst. You make lots of plans with people weeks in advance and then on the day you regret making plans as all you want to do is go to bed, because you know, life is hard. You hope they bail, they hope you bail, and you play bail chicken. When someone does eventually bail, you can go to bed and watch Netflix, or drink red wine and watch Netflix and its so so great. Being sent to bed used to be such a punishment but now as an adult it’s a reward for all your hard work of being an adult that day.

Ordering wine based on region

Of course you’ll order the 2011 Pinot Gris from blah region, you love that wine, hell you’ve been to that Winery on your last girls weekend / couples retreat. You recommend having it with dried fig and manchego cheese.

If the above sounds familiar and adult status has slapped you in the face like a cold fish we recommend you grab the nearest bottle of wine (it’s not Goon anymore at this point) and cheers to your inner 18 year old who is desperately clinging to Peter Pan status.