When we were 15, we would daydream about our golden decade: our 20s. We imagined it as a video montage of Friends, Gossip Girl and Sex and the City scenes playing in slow motion to uplifting music. Oh, so young and naïve. How come no one told us that wasn’t how it was going to be? Where’s our video montage?
1. We’ll live in a posh apartment in a trendy city
Expectation:
And fill it with chic furniture with names like BOSNÄS and SÖDERHAMN.
Reality:
Turns out a studio apartment isn’t big enough for two beds, so homemade bunk beds will have to suffice. At least that leaves room to walk through to the kitchen.
2. You’ll have an expensive and full style maturation
Expectation:
Which means no more $2 neon-colored tube-top-miniskirt hybrids – you’ll have a perfectly organized Carrie-Bradshaw closet with outfits for every mood and occasion.
Reality:
You get really good at finding different ways to wear the same 20 articles of clothing (since that’s all your shoebox of a studio apartment closet can fit).
3. You’ll live happily ever after with your best friends
Expectation:
You’ll all get your dream jobs in the same city and you’ll share that trendy city apartment, which means never having to find random roommates or subletters off of Craigslist.
Reality:
Maybe living with Mom and Dad wasn’t so bad….
4. Gossip and drama won’t exist in the 20s life
Expectation:
Because one morning, all the twentysomething girls in the world will just wake up and decide they will all be nothing but nice to one another until their last days on this earth.
“No one is supposed to know this, so don’t tell anyone, but…”
5. There will be a bigger and better-looking selection of eligible fish in the sea
Expectation:
Because your milkshake will bring all the men to the yard.
Reality:
Your milkshake may not bring the men to the yard, but until it does, there is always Tinder to help bring the boys to the yard.
6. Your social life will be exciting enough for a reality TV show
Expectation:
Legal drinking age means wild clubs, cool bars and sleeping all day before doing it all over again.
Reality:
Go out and miss an episode of Real Housewives? Hell no. Plus, payday isn’t until next Friday.
7. You’ll get really good at walking in high heels
Expectation:
You’ll own 65 pairs and walk around like Tyra Banks all day, even if you’re just going to the copy room.
Reality:
Blisters so bad you’re forced to wear your Nikes for your morning commute in your pencil skirt and blazer.
8. You’ll enjoy swanky brunches four days a week
Expectation:
You’ll eat croissants, drink mimosas and tell stories about your weekend adventures.
Reality:
McDonald’s: it’s easy on the wallet, and you don’t have to get out of your pajamas or car.
9. Even after paying your bills, you’ll have endless fun money to blow
Expectation:
Aren’t expensive shoes and $10 cocktails what our 20s are all about?
Reality:
Sallie Mae called for the sixth time this week, so those cocktails and shoes are gonna have to wait.
10. You’ll have time to do it all and live a perfectly balanced adult life
Expectation:
With time to go to school, work, exercise daily, sleep eight hours a night and still rule the social scene.
Reality:
Looks like there was just no time for the gym today… that makes three weeks in a row.
11. Ditching the sh*tty car ASAP
Expectation:
As an official adult, you’ll reserve the right to get rid of the rust-bucket Honda you got for your 16th birthday. Car payments? No biggie; your big-kid job will take care of those.
Reality:
There’s nothing like pulling up to a meeting with your boss and having to climb out your passenger door because your driver’s side door handle has been broken for three years.
12. You’ll get that puppy you always wanted
Expectation:
It’s not like you’ll be having a kid. They can’t be that hard to take care of.
Reality:
No one ever said this thing was going to poop six times a day. Maybe Mom and Dad want a new buddy…
13. You’ll have all the answers to life, liberty and the pursuit of adulthood
Expectation:
Because you will be an old and wise twentysomething.
Reality:
Really though, what’s going on here? Is this real life?
14. You’ll catch up with old high school friends and things will be just like old times
Expectation:
You were serious when you made that ninth-grade promise about being friends forever and ever and ever and ever.
Reality:
You’d think after three years without seeing each other there would be plenty to catch up on, but apparently not…
15. Basically, life will be one big sitcom.
Expectation:
*Cue video montage*
Reality:
Sure, it isn’t exactly what we imagined, but even with all of our crushed teenage expectations, our 20s are still substantially amazing. We learn to embrace these realities, because no good story ever starts with, “This one time, when everything in my life went as I had hoped and planned…”