So here is an open letter for most of the 40+ year olds that have been driving me up the wall! I figured I'd put this out here for all, so if you see a behavior of yours on the list, you know to quit doing it.
- I'm not the new intern or the cleaning service at the place where I work. I have yet to see a maintenance professional wear openwork tights and pencil skirts to do her job, and I haven't been an intern in over half a decade. I'm a professional with two degrees and a committee and six years of experience under my belt, and I was before I even met you. Please ask me what my title is instead of assuming that the grant writer must be older to write so well.
- I don't work at the store where you're shopping. You'll notice that I'm not wearing a nametag like the employees of the store. Please find one of them if you're looking for something. I am here to shop just like you are, and I don't really need my errands interrupted because you don't know the layout of the store or wish to ask someone who actually works there. My age doesn't put me in a permanent status of servant.
- I REALLY am not out to steal your spouse! I'll bet dollars to donuts that your spouse doesn't want me either. Therefore, there is no reason why you need to hover around your spouse at a fundraiser we're both at as though you think I'm going to pull out a ring I made and propose right there on the spot. I am no threat to you or your relationship. I'm simply at the fundraiser to well, raise funds.
- And along that logic, I don't want to be set up with your kid or grandkid who is the same age as me. You are not a dating service, and even if I was looking, after the condescending way you treated me, I would not want to have you as an in-law.
- I don't think it's a compliment when you tell me I'm not like those other 20-somethings you know. You realize that to give this compliment to me, you're insulting people like me, right? I'm sure that many of them have some admirable qualities and some problematic ones. Like me. I'm not an exceptional young person. I'm a human young person, full of faults and successes and eccentricities like everyone else.
- I'm not a living example of whatever pop culture tells you about young adults. I don't live my life like I belong on Girls (I don't even like Lena Dunham). I don't crush on glittery vampires (though I wear a good deal of glitter when I go to concerts or dancing). The great cartoonist Jackie Ormes said "I draw people, not stereotypes." Well, I think I can paraphrase that to "I'm a person, not a stereotype." Try to listen to me before making a judgment.
- I do have problems. We all have problems. So don't say, "You're young, what could you possibly have to worry about?" We all have something to worry about at any age. So don't assume that a young person's life is perfect.
