Being exactly a year and 4 months into my twenties, I feel obligated, as someone who often writes about her life, to divulge my most valuable experiences thus far. From the title, you might think Iâve reached some sort of enlightenment or had a couple of perspective-altering revelations that had me reflect deeply in a way that irreversibly changed my behavior. Unfortunately for you, Iâm here to support the notion that I, a year and four months into my twenties, and in the wise words of Anthony Bourdain, am still âspoiled, narcissistic, and badly in-need of an ass kickingâ.Â
I still live with my parents. Which is kind of a lame sentence to have to say to friends and acquaintances while youâre the big twenty-one, while theyâre having house parties and going to the bars at every chance, and my nights are typically spent over a computer trying to build data visualizations, but I digress. I also work three jobs. I like to say that because it makes me seem like a really busy and deeply serious woman, but in reality two out of three jobs are student jobs, and my third one is spent tutoring kids at Kumon, so not much room for complaining there. Iâm in offices that are air-conditioned, with comfy seats and no real back-breaking work. Still, thereâs this side of me I often reflect on that makes me feel a bit uneasy. I go to an expensive school, have great friends and family, have money to spend as I’d like, and am generally able to do as I’d like. Yet I still find myself listening to the typical teen-angst music, being needlessly stubborn, and at times, being impatient and snarky towards people I love. But why? When you have every need of yours met, what could you possibly be so angry at?
I think some of the attitude problems stem back to the still-living-with-your-parents-in-your-twenties thing. Itâs a little difficult to not still be in the âget out of my room, Momâ teenage phase when your parents still shamelessly go through your room. I mean, even saying that makes me come off as a privileged asshole to an extent; who can complain when you still get home-cooked meals every night, no rent or utilities, and a pretty carefree life? Me, I guess. I know that Iâm luckier than most in having a really good relationship with my parents, enough for me to not have to worry about making rent every month, and I am incredibly grateful for everything Iâm given; I really am. But that doesnât mean I donât roll my eyes when my mom nags me, or argue with my dad at the dinner table when he tells me to clean my room for what feels like the 500th time that week alone. In a way, I do think that being in a constant environment where youâre treated like a teenager still hinders you or makes you act in a childish way that your peers arenât exactly exposed to. When you still live with your parents, I also think it leads you to be a bit more obsessed or have narcissistic tendencies you wouldnât really be experiencing when doing the typical living with roommates. My parents, in a way, are kind of obligated to listen to me vent about my 17 credit classes as a senior and my three jobs, because theyâre my parents. Talking about yourself endlessly, plus how your classes are just so hard, is narcissistic, and doing it day in and day out does lead you to be a bit conceited in some ways I donât think youâd notice right away. But I noticed it when I was complaining about a 7:35 class (for seemingly the 3000th time) to my coworker, and she said: âWhy donât you do something about it and drop the class if you hate it so much?â
It stung a little bit to get a reality check like that. I think that hearing that sentence out of her mouth was a very necessary thing for me to hear, and made me realize that consistent complaining, in and of itself, is a narcissistic act, one that I participate in semi-frequently, and that is kind of hard to reckon with.
Similar in experience, I was recently seeing someone (itâs always a boy, isnât it?) who showed me a lot of sides of myself I didnât entirely love either. It was my first time in a long time dating somebody, and I think you forget a lot of what it takes to make a relationship work with someone. You arenât necessarily allowed the same liberty of behaving the same way you did when you were single. And I donât mean that in a way like, ugh ââ I can’t make out with ten guys at the bar tonight since I’m seeing this guy! (although if that is you, I don’t blame you â weâre all young, câest la vie, blah blah blah), but I mean it more in the sense that, to an extent â you are responsible for someoneâs emotions. I am not at liberty to not respond to the guy, because thatâs ghosting. I am not allowed to not pay him attention because thatâs cruel; weâre in a romantic relationship together, right? Equal effort is needed. But I found out that Iâm a person who tends to feel constrained one way or another when I constantly have an obligation to a person. And I know what youâre probably thinking ââ wow, she really is spoiled and kind of an asshole; shouldnât you have known that before getting into a relationship? And to that I say you would be correct. Except for the fact that I earnestly didnât know it would be like this. Everyone says you learn a lot about yourself in your twenties, and that theyâre meant to be messy and pretty fucked up. What they donât tell you is that this is at the cost of people and even yourself at times.
When we broke up, he brought up that he had thought I was cold the entire time and not open to his feelings. When I pointed out that he never brought it up, he said it was because I never made him feel like he could. And that did hurt, because if youâre never told the ways youâre hurting somebody, how could you ever begin to change?Â
When I think about my part in things, I think about how I felt months ago that this relationship wasnât going to work. I remember how I would get so nauseous before dates, I would throw up, or how I didnât feel excited but overwhelmingly nervous instead before seeing him. I think about how I would listen to âyou seem pretty sad for a girl so in loveâ so frequently that it never left my top listening on Spotify. I think about how I didnât think it was important to introduce him to my friends, because I just knew they wouldnât mesh well. But I want to say it wasnât always like that. It wasnât like that when I would be so excited to text him at stoplights, or when I got so many notifications from him that my friends would roll their eyes at the number of times he would text while we were hanging out. It wasnât like that when we would talk for hours during the summer until the morning. It wasnât like that when I only related to the first half of âyou seem pretty sad for a girl so in loveâ. But thereâs always a dread that comes with meâ that comes when things become overtly serious in relationships. I thought I could push past it, like some sort of turnstile you push to get into the subway. Surprise, surprise, I donât think thatâs how relationships work, and you owe it to people to be honest, which I would say I confidently know now, but I donât think I can. Not yet, in all honesty, anyways.
In a pretty nonsensical way, I still feel mad about the situation. My emotions were, and are, those of a spoiled child who hated when she got consequences rightfully dealt to her- and still I feel them. I was neglectful in the relationship, and when we broke up, I still felt like it wasnât entirely my fault, because heâs responsible for his emotions and communicating to me what they are. Even now, it feels like Iâm wholeheartedly blaming him for the end of the relationship, but that really isnât my intention. When youâre wrong, I think you can have an obsession with proving that you werenât really as bad as you say, and that things ended not because of just you, but greater nuances at play. Well, I remember when he would do or say this, and he obviously is petty and immature given how he responded. I donât think it takes me outright saying that line of thinking doesnât really make sense once you get past the first stage of reckoning in a situation like this. But I think that in a way, I felt rejected. The parts of me he told me he was okay with were thrown back in my face at a later date, and to be told I was the only one at fault for the dissolution of everything. In earnest, and pretty selfishly, I think I want somebody to tell me that Iâm right. On some level, it was acceptable that I acted the way I did, and that these things just happen, and fuck him! But I donât want to be a person who canât accept the fact that they are sometimes, god forbid, incredibly wrong in situations at times and not, in fact, Godâs perfect little angel.
Most of these events are still pretty freshâ and I think I’m still trying to reckon with what they mean at all. People tell you itâs okay to mess up, itâs okay to learn more about yourself, but what they donât tell you is how to get rid of the gut-wrenching guilt, the inevitable wrongdoing in relationships that comes with figuring yourself out. I know Iâm not perfectâ far from it. But Iâd like to think that Iâm becoming someone who wonât be a spoiled, narcissistic girl well into her twenties and who is badly in need of an ass-kicking.