What do you do that is a holdover from childhood?
To be clear, I don’t mean behavior that would imply you are “immature” or “childish”, just something you started doing as a child that continues to present day.
For me, it’s looking for the airplane when I hear the sound of one flying overhead.
I’ve been noticing, more, myself doing this lately for some reason, but it’s not something I’ve ever really stopped doing since I was a child.
I try to miss cracks in the sidewalk.
Maybe now it’s so I don’t faceplant. But as a kid it was a game.
Last week I made hubs come with me when I was delivering things to a friend’s husband while she wasn’t home. It’s unseemly for an unescorted lady to visit a male non-relative alone in his home.
I recently found a note my first grade teacher wrote to my mother about how I was doing in school. She said I worked hard - too hard. I wasn’t playing with other kids or on my own, and it concerned her.
Today I still prefer to spend time by myself. I don’t think I’m working quite so hard, but I have definitely kept to the pattern of being off on my own. This, despite the fact that I’ve had a few careers that required me to be very outgoing. As I get older I realize that was me, an introvert, masquerading as an extrovert. Nowadays I’m no longer keeping up that appearance.
I fight taking a shower and going to bed. I love both being clean and sleeping but every goddamn night I fight going to bed. And when it’s time for a shower, I wait until the last minute.
Like tonight, I wrapped up watching the shows I wanted to watch about a half hour ago. I’m tired from a long weekend. My dogs are already in bed waiting for me. But I’m fucking around, doing shit like posting here.
As an adult, I wake up every morning wishing I had gone to bed earlier. And every night my inner child says “nooooooooo!”
I think there are a lot of us like that on here! I, for instance, should be in the shower right now.
I sometimes tell myself stories out loud when I’m alone doing a boring household task, making up a plot and dialogue as I go along. I’ll generally have a cast and a general storyline going, and the details change over time. This is something I’ve done since I was a child; it’s kind of a grownup version of imaginary friends.
When I’m sick, I tend to treat myself as I was treated as a kid who was sick and would receive the care I give to myself as I did back then. I guess that’s one of many such things, I tend to use child mode at times almost in a mediative sense.
At a bar once and I noticed a lady looking at me. We locked eyes for a bit.
Then I wrote on a piece of paper:
"I like you. Do you like me?
(Check)
Yes
No"
I then handed it to the bartender and asked her to pass it to the lady.
It worked bc she came over and talked to me with a big grin on her face.
Who knew 1st graders have the best pick up lines? Lol
I still react very strongly to bullies. It’s definitely learned behavior from being a small kid in school. IMO, the bully will always be there, but now wears a suit, or a uniform. I still recognize the type, and distance myself as soon as possible. It has surprised a few salesmen that tried intimidation and found themselves talking to empty air. I’ve also abruptly quit jobs when assigned to a bullying manager. One at a Fortune 100 company – I’d only been there 2 weeks and gave notice to HR.
I’ve reached a point in my life where I no longer have to tolerate them, and can just move on.
I still do this, and I feel disappointed if it gets hidden behind trees or a cloud before I get a look at it.
It was never a game. The structural integrity of our mothers’ backs was at stake!
Whenever I accidentally drop salt on the table I take a pinch of it and throw it over my shoulder, this was not a custom I picked up from my family who had very few customs of that type, but from reading Tom Sawyer at age 8 or so.
There are better ways to tie my shoes than the way I learned, but I’m locked into it.
AM TOO! ::raspberry::
You started doing that as a child?
I still can’t resist flipping over a piece of wood or cardboard in a field to see what it is underneath it. I also have a weird fascination with flowing water. I grew up in the city and I was always busy creating micro creeks and habitats for the local wildlife. I still have a strong temptation to head out to the local fields and reroute the drainage.
Do patting cats and reading something whenever I’ve got a hand and eye available count?
How about writing bits of stories in my head, and not finishing them though I keep coming back to them?
What about arguing?
Like I’m looking in a mirror! I always wondered if there were some way to turn that into a career.
I was the one who shoveled the snow – my folks’ house was in the middle of the block and the storm drain was “their” property and I had to get out there and clear the blockage so the run-off would run off and the neighborhood would be safe from ice (at least until the next bout of snow). All in a day’s work for 
burpo_the_shovel_mutt!
Absolutely. Manners are like religion, the lessons work best before a child is at the age of reason.
If you want me to go on arguing, you’ll have to pay for another five minutes.
I didn’t know arguing was a childish behavior. If it really, truly is (wanna argue about it?), then I’m guilty.
I look at the ground when I walk. I’m a clumsy klutz, and I try to minimize my chances of falling. I mean, I can trip over a PAINTED line!
Childish behaviors I cannot stand in adults? WHINING.
~VOW
Sure. I’d suggest Soils & Water agency
and I’m sure other states and countries have something similar; or you could work as a contractor dealing with drainage issues, for farmers and developers and highway constructors and so on.
I’ve been doing it since I was a child. And the OP says