# Things adults do that you find (mildly) juvenile **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 18, 2018, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141 "2018-07-18T12:40:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/61 "2018-07-18T20:17:02Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Probably the only thing that came close to that for me was adults obsessed with Disney iconography. > > I tend to have a negative view of adults who are obsessed with video games, superheros, Star Trek/Wars, etc. The key word is obsessed, I am a firm believer in moderation in all things. All of the above, to me, fall into the category of entertainment, and I feel adults should not be spending 100% of their time in the pursuit of consuming entertainment. Adults should do something productive and contribute to society. Obsessing about entertainment is frankly overindulging in pleasure seeking. > > And I’m also on the “don’t dress like an 8 year old” bandwagon. Shorts and flip-flops and a baggy logo T-shirt and a ball cap - 8 year old. (Yes, you! I can see you through my screen!) Most people need jobs to live, or at least to live well. So they’ll have to contribute to society whether they want to or not. And if it’s a humid 98 degree day in Washington DC, I’m gonna wear as little as possible, especially if I have the day off. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/62 "2018-07-18T20:24:50Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > As a short fat man, I wear cargo shorts all the time now that summer is here. It’s hard find long pants in my waist size that have short enough inseam for my legs. The only long pants I own now are jeans I wear with the ankles rolled up to make them short enough. Frankly I’m not sure what I would do if I couldn’t wear shorts; wearing denim in the summer is uncomfortable as hell and rolling the legs on pants that aren’t jeans looks ridiculous. Well, I’m short but you can always get pants hemmed. Some catalogs (e.g. Land’s End) will do it for you at no charge. I wear cargo shorts in the summer because they’re comfortable and I’m not wearing a coat so I have no other place to put all my _stuff_. If someone wants to critique my fashion choices, I guess I’d consider that mildly juvenile. Fortunately I work in the computer field and society gives me a dispensation on fashion because apparently I’m not supposed to know any better 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/63 "2018-07-18T21:26:08Z")
I consider being bothered by swear words (not being sworn _at_, just that you’re hearing them at all) to be extremely childish. Which I recognize is incongruence because ancient people seem to be the ones most often bothered. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/64 "2018-07-18T23:03:28Z")
> [@PackerMan](#): > > I just learned about this last week. I saw it on some show on either the Cooking Channel or Food Network. Lots of variations, but basically cooked ground beef, veggies, cream of mushroom soup, shredded cheese then covered in tater tots and baked. > > Having grown up in the Midwest, I would have thought I would know if it, but I guess it is just a Minnesota thing. > > After seeing it, I had to pick up some tots on my last time shopping for groceries. This reminded me that I haven’t made it yet. Guess I know what is for dinner tonight! You grew up in the Midwest and never heard of tater tot casserole? Mine skips the cheese and adds sliced onions or better yet pearl onions. I prefer green beans for the veggie while my wife goes with corn. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/65 "2018-07-18T23:27:49Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > \*I mean, apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health. Brought Peace? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/66 "2018-07-19T02:21:02Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Celebrating their birthday. This is what I came to say. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/67 "2018-07-19T02:25:29Z")
Posting photos of their lunch on Facebook. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/68 "2018-07-19T02:30:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > The difference is that there have been grown men obsessed with sports for as long as I can remember, so it never registered with me as being incompatible with adulthood. But I don’t remember any adults being obsessed with things like My Little Pony or Harry Potter or cartoons or superheroes when I was a kid. Well to be fair some of those things did not exist when some people were kids. My mom did a lot of sewing when she was a kid because there wasn’t much else to do for fun by herself. She still sews today as a hobby. I had video games to occupy myself with. I still play today. Most adults, around my age, I know still play and now they play with their 20 year old kids. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/69 "2018-07-19T03:05:04Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Grown men wearing short pants. It’s not particularly rational or fair, but it’s how I feel. It doesn’t bother me in certain contexts (if they’re at the beach, hiking, running, mowing the lawn, relaxing at their own home, etc.). But at restaurants or stores, at work or school, when visiting other people’s houses, put on some long pants. > > I think it bothers me because of my father’s experiences. Until he as 12, his controlling, extremely old-fashioned mother wouldn’t let him wear long pants, ever. He had to wear shorts in the summer and knee-pants (knickers) in winter, whether he wanted to or not (and he didn’t want to). He so resented that childhood rule that he never wore shorts as an adult, even when the weather was hot. To this day I associate long pants with grown men and short pants with children. Myself I never wear shorts in public and only very, very rarely at home. I’m 61, and I wear short pants exclusively. I live in Arizona, so I have an excuse. And I’m not alone. Sure, I’ll wear long pants where short pants are inappropriate, but there are very few places where they are. And I don’t care how other people think I look in them. If you think I look like a child, fine. Like John Mellencamp said, “Well, growing up leads to growing old, and then to dying, ooh and dying to me don’t sound like all that much fun.” ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/70 "2018-07-19T03:31:30Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > On this subject, it’s recently\* become the norm in chain restaurants (e.g. Denny’s, Outback) to give you a straw with your soft drink if you order one, even though the soda’s served in a regular glass. At many of these places, the drink will arrive with the straw already in it. > > At first, my reaction was, ‘WTF do I need a straw for? I’m not a kid.’ But now I just shrug. And if the straw’s already in the glass, I use it. > \*Like over the past decade or two. When you get old, your perspective on time gets all funny. 🙂 If you had a fixed bridge for your front teeth strapped together in the back with that band of metal, you’d want a straw, too. The steel or whatever it is conducts that icy coldness right to the nerves. Similar to brain freeze, only it’s your two front teeth. Eek! ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/71 "2018-07-19T03:43:09Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > What is hotdish? Why is it wrong to use a spoon? I think there is some kind of inverse relationship between how inefficient an eating method is and how polite it is. For instance, it’s “impolite” to eat food with your fingers even if that results in less food waste, and as a child I used to be lectured about how important it was to tilt my bowl _away_ from me while using a spoon to eat soup from a bowl, rather than towards me, even though it was far easier to eat soup with the latter method than the former. And here someone’s wife is mad because her husband uses a spoon for a casserole rather than a fork. It does seem to be a case of “If a method is more energy-intensive, it’s probably politer” etiquette. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/72 "2018-07-19T03:49:13Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > The difference is that there have been grown men obsessed with sports for as long as I can remember, so it never registered with me as being incompatible with adulthood. But I don’t remember any adults being obsessed with things like My Little Pony or Harry Potter or cartoons or superheroes when I was a kid. When I was a kid, the big thing for women was soap operas. My mother planned her life around “As The World Turns.” :smack: For that matter, I liked “Downton Abbey” but it’s not like I lived for it or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/73 "2018-07-19T09:25:10Z")
A quote from Doctor Who (Tom Baker). ‘What’s the point of being grown up, if you can’t act childishly when you want to?’ ‘Have a jelly baby’. I think I would have been about 15-16 when I saw that. Liked it then - still do. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/74 "2018-07-19T09:25:42Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > … and as a child I used to be lectured about how important it was to tilt my bowl _away_ from me while using a spoon to eat soup from a bowl, rather than towards me, even though it was far easier to eat soup with the latter method than the former. Pretty sure that’s just because it’s harder to spill soup all over your lap if you tilt the bowl away. That’s one of the few dining rules that actually makes sense to me, even if it does feel a bit more awkward. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/75 "2018-07-19T11:12:29Z")
Any decibel-based acts by aging adolescents to draw attention to themselves seem juvenile to me. The comical redneck in his preposterously lifted and loud pickup truck? The laughable child in his Make-Believe-I’m-a-Dangerous-Felon costume revving his Harley to ear-splitting levels at the stop light? These are the antics of attention seeking children. They each think they’re presenting the steely-eyed gaze of a dangerous road warrior. All I see is the self-satisfied look of a toddler on a pot. ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/76 "2018-07-19T11:33:11Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I’m 61, and I wear short pants exclusively. I live in Arizona, so I have an excuse. All of the shorts haters should also steer clear of Australia. Blokes here can get around in them all year round. 😃 As for the question, no, there really isn’t anything I’d consider juvenile - whatever floats your boat as far as I’m concerned. Maybe someone who carries on like a toddler if something goes wrong with their order or service in a cafe. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/77 "2018-07-19T13:15:38Z")
Superhero movies and shows. I’m always amazed when an adult will start talking about the latest superhero movie or tv show. I realize that puts me in the minority here. ETA: and being a picky eater to the point it affects how/where other people dine. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/78 "2018-07-19T13:29:34Z")
Video games Overuse of social media Picky eating Making a big deal out of birthdays ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/79 "2018-07-19T13:47:41Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Probably the only thing that came close to that for me was adults obsessed with Disney iconography… Seconded. You know how much shorter (and cheaper!) taking the kids to Disney World would be if you didn’t have to wait in line behind thousands of freaking adults who won’t grow the fuck up!? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141/80 "2018-07-19T14:01:39Z")
In my time as a store cashier, I have seen supposed adults come to fisticuffs over who is going to pay the bill. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-adults-do-that-you-find-mildly-juvenile/818141.md?page=5)