Peter Pan-ism

Went out with some old friends last night. When I was telling a new friend about it earlier in the day, she thought I was hanging out with geriatrics. I clarified that they were friends that went back a long way. But after last night, I was beginning to think that the line between the two definitions of 'old' in the case of these friends was fuzzier than I'd thought.

I was one of only two singles last night. There were ten of us. Four couples. The conversation around the table went from golf to apartment furnishing to wedding planning. I think I was fairly reticent (which is pretty unusual, you'll know if you know me) the whole night. I only spoke at length on a couple of topics that strayed away from the main body of adult-talk (that sounds so wrong). For one, I volunteered an unsolicited sales pitch on the soon-to-be-released Xbox 360—“this machine’s going to revolutionalise gaming and entertainment!!”—to a largely unenthusiastic audience. Oh did I mention we were drinking wine?

Which really led me thinking about my seemingly stunted development. When did I get left behind in the great game of growing up? These were all my peers I had spent the better part of my life with—all the way from secondary school, junior college, army, college and back in army again. Somehow, they had all matured into stable, regular-income lives with predictable weekends and sedentary sports, while I was still frolicking my free time away, usually inebriated, and unconscious if not. The little boy in me never got tucked away. Hell, I bloody look like one.

Where do people of my flock end up? I remember this one line inscribed on the inside of a Pulp album cover: “It’s OK to grow up – Just as long as you don’t grow old. Face it.. You are young.” Sometimes I suspect I might just have taken it a little too seriously. Is it such a bad thing? For now, I shall revel in my perpetual youth.