# Holy Crap I turn 21 this year **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 15, 2004, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-i-turn-21-this-year/224665 "2004-01-15T22:36:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JessEnigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cdc98d/32.png) [@JessEnigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessEnigma)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-i-turn-21-this-year/224665/41 "2004-01-18T21:30:55Z")
> [@Happy Lendervedder](#): > > I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing. It makes me feel younger, but maybe it just means I’m immature. I also know that I think of the 36 year-old as “old,” so I imagine the 22 year-old thinks quite the same of me. ☹ If it helps, I still think you’re young! 29. Pfft. Even my parents aren’t particularly old and they’re mid-40s. I’m going to be 20 this year. It normally bothers my parents far more than me, until I see something on television or something with, oh, 18 year olds getting married and having kids. Or classmates getting engaged. Then I get quite frantic. “Oh dear god, I’m turning 20 and I’ve never even been on a date! Marriage? KIDS? I’m doomed forever to be an old maid!” Besides that, I still haven’t gotten around to buying any cigarettes, lottery tickets, or porn. I haven’t gone to see any R-rated movies in theatres. I don’t even have a driver’s license. I have enjoyed none of the privileges that turning 18 brought me. Maybe that’s why I feel like a 14 year old pretending all the time. Does that ever end? Because I don’t really want to be stuck with the mindset of an 8th grader forever. ---
**Author:** ![Treviathan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/838e76/32.png) [@Treviathan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treviathan)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2004, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-i-turn-21-this-year/224665/42 "2004-01-18T21:44:36Z")
> [@xayoz306](#): > > I uttered the phrase “I remember 20 years ago…” Come April, it’s going to be the twentieth anniversary of my first memory - fingerpainting with my mom when I was four. Strange thing is, my _next_ memory is of being six and trying to convince a store clerk that I was really seven because it was my favorite number. I’m blaming the aliens and their nefarious brainwipes for those missing two years. [sub] Oh, and I’m from Saskatchewan too, and according to my parents, it would have been '83 or '84 when it snowed on August 27th, my little brother’s birthday. So there you go. [/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-i-turn-21-this-year/224665/43 "2004-01-19T00:13:27Z")
It’s all downhill from here, my friends (I turned 21 a few months ago). Just think, you’re closer to 30 after your 20th birthday than you are to 10; closer to _forty years old_ than to your birth. That’s probably my all-time least favorite thought. Damn it. Oh, and no offense to those older than 40. That’s not what I meant. _You dinosaurs. Can’t read this small, can you?_ ---
**Author:** ![MadnessIsAVirtue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MadnessIsAVirtue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadnessIsAVirtue)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2004, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-i-turn-21-this-year/224665/44 "2004-01-19T06:01:09Z")
Know the feeling exactly. I also hit 21 this year. That’s a very weird thought, since it’s barely been three months since I turned 20. I’m still staring at my navel and contemplating that I’m no longer a teenager and I’m now in my twenties. Freaky. But I’m also in Australia, so 21 isn’t that big a deal, cause you’re a full adult at 18 here. Though I was thought it was weird being a legal adult when you’re still a teenager. I never felt like a real adult much until I turned 20. Now I’m starting to grasp being a grownup. But turning 20 was a big thing to me. I realised I was going to be a -tysomething for the rest of my life (i.e. twentysomething, thirtysomething, fortysomething, etc.), which is different to being a something-teen (sixteen, seventeen, etc.). There was something weird about that for some reason. And I realised that I can now say I did such-and-such 20 years ago, just like 40 and 50-year-olds can. That’s very weird. It’s gonna be really weird in a couple of years when my first memory hits 20 years of age. And, Jimmy, thanks heaps for mentioning that after you turn 20, you’re closer to 30 than you are to 10 and closer to 40 than you are to your birth. There’s a disturbing thought. I only just contemplated that I’m halfway to 40. But being closer to 40 than my own birth is really scary! Now I feel really distant from my receding youth… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/holy-crap-i-turn-21-this-year/224665.md?page=2)