Are adults faking being adult-like/mature?

Page 1 of 1 [ 10 posts ] 

Kon
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Nov 2010
Age: 64
Gender: Male
Posts: 728
Location: Toronto, Canada

09 Jan 2011, 1:04 am

I always feel/behave/think more like a kid even to people much younger than me. My wife treats me like one and my behaviour angers her. But I know when she escapes her societal role/pathology, she is more fun and childish like me. Sometimes, I feel most adults must be faking it, but are pressured to conform being adult/mature but they become so good at it, they forget who they really were.



LittleTigger
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Nov 2009
Age: 57
Gender: Male
Posts: 814

09 Jan 2011, 2:31 am

I tride twice in my life to be a growedup,
I was miserable enuf that I tried suicide
once and thought about it twice.

Never again.

I am not endangering my health again
for ANYONE.

Boy was I stupid.

When people quit expecting too much
from me, I will quit disappointing them.


_________________
A Boy And His Cat

When society stops expecting
too much from me, I will
stop disappointing them.


Puppygnu
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 2 Jan 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 137

09 Jan 2011, 2:38 am

All NT people pretend to be more mature, rational, and knowledgeable than they are. Like my music teacher said, "Fake it until you make it."



Chloeh
Butterfly
Butterfly

User avatar

Joined: 1 Jan 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 9

09 Jan 2011, 7:36 am

Of course they fake it! My boyfriend and I do exactly the same thing as your wife. My Boyfriends mother and her finance do the same thing too. It sociably acceptable to act your age, not everyone wants to but not everyone naturally does. We were all a little kid once upon a time and you find that many people say "My childhood/teenage years were the best years of my life". So why wouldn't we take a small part of that with us.

AS are generally more immature than NT but we can also be more mature than them at times too.

It is something that really depends on the person.

:)



antonblock
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 26 Dec 2010
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 351
Location: europe

09 Jan 2011, 8:13 am

Hi there,

its not only that young people pretend to be mature, rational, knowledgeable, its most people pretend and play, therefore it is said "we all play theater", there is also a good and famousbook from Erving Goffman. Read it, and then you understand that all play, in order that others get the impression they want.

I for myself don't know if i shall also pretend more. On the one side, its looks amorally to me, doing as if I like someone else, only because its the friend of someone i really like or want something from. On the other side, not playing, and also not taking too much care about the feelings of others, will result that all people have also a very wrong impression of you too.

I am still not sure, what a "good actor" in real-life is. I am a bad actor, if I lie, my head gets red, and i get very nervous, thus everyone will notice that I lie, you don't have to be an expert in reading body language to see it :-)

byebye,
Anton



sillycat
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 13 Jun 2010
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 423

09 Jan 2011, 10:17 am

Well my step mom, a 50+ woman, acts like a little 4 year old child who just crapped her pants, over little little things, such as trying to attack me with a knife, because I informed her I didn't use the electric heater one night. I usually use it to heat the room then I kill it when I sleep. (to presever it's integrity, ware and tear, and for saftey reasons, who know if it's starts a fire, or some thing, and it costs electricity, (I'm an environut, but here in China, such gestures are futiley moot). Or she flips out and bangs the table like a temper tandrum woman-child, because I spilt some soup during hot pot, and was trying to clean it up, (Aspie eye hand corrdination issues).

In the words of my dad. As soon as she wakes up she opens one eye, and spins it around the room to see if there is anything to complain about.... Well it's a Shanghai slum that used to be a navy barracks.... so yeah.

I do however praise her adult, math skills, a farm girl capable of counting cows, (which is the attitude, enough to count cows, chickens), with the mind that has never progressed past grade 4. Oddly she can read, and use a computer... stranger things have happened in my life. She is able to haggle 1 RMB from an fish already costing 1 RMB. She screams and freaks out, until the Fish seller just gives to her...

Of course in her childlike mind she's the good perfect little angel, when she beats my half sister, when she strikes out with a knife, and tries to beat me up in an airport, (which oddly felt exciting (flight or fight), and the endorphine rush from the blows actually felt good. What kind of a freak am I?).This infuriated her, as her plan was to inspire me to hit her back, and cry like a little Suzie (barflies in Hong Kong, are known as Tsim Tsam Wa Suzies, it's like the Copacabana like neighborhood in Rio). they love to get into testostrone charged arguments, taking full advantage of a man's unwillingness to hit a woman back. Based on the principle of "so big and so small". But it's perfectly ok for them to say hit you with a chair! (me), then you go to defend yourself, this fuels their anger of what ever trivial slight suffering inflicted upon them. Then they cry to the police who investigates. But I just laughed it off, I had to hold my dad back. He exploded years and years of rage on her. I held him back. While she kept on I don't know how she hit my back, I assume it was her kicking it. From the irnertia, but the surface area was more suited for a punch. But Punches arn't really used with such precision when one is raging. (which is why in martial arts such as Puglism or Karate, or Kungful, control is stressed). Anyways, She get angrier, until boom, she tries to punch my face. IN FULL VIEW of the weak willed Chinese police. I love how my people have turned into spineless cowards. Here she was in a Chinese airport. she 1)Jumps the line cords, in the SECURE area of the airport. then she punches me and bends my glasses?

If I hit her, guess who goes to jail for 15 days in America, for Assult and battering? especially when I was tring to hold my dad back, and walk away. With repeated blows? China..... and Chinese Ren Chongkuo ren, you were better off under the whites! at least we were civilized then and Shanghai was a world classed city, instead of a confused mass of lunacy. (Love how I'm walking on a cross walk, during a GREEN light and drivers still honk at me. So I swear all sorts of explicts, at my own people.

I honestly feel bad for the Chinese. Such defeat and cowardace.....and shame. The adult Chinese want to keep on blaming the Laowais (wh***y), for their problems. Oh no, America is making LEGAL diplomatic missions in Japan, Korean, and India, wahh hoohhoohwbohhooohooo, oh no, the Japanese invaded us, let's blame them for littering and turing our country into a Zergling creep! It's america's fault there are garbage piles everywhere, and it's America's fault there are gross injustices like the harvesting of organs from excuted inmates, skinned animals, pollution. It's Japan's fault, that the schools collapsed on the school children in Shechwan. And I'm sure because invaded China to fight for Indochine, it's France's fault that Chinese factories made poisonous pet food, killing beloved pets that animal lovers loved! Like how would you feel if your pet dog, who has done nothing, was poisoned? Of course, it's England's fault, China pollutes it's own rivers!]Grow up and join the human race China! stop being a fat spoiled Chinese baby. I say this because I know the Chinese are capable of bigger and badder things in life. The Overseas Chinese, the Hong Kong and Macaunese Chinese. the noble prized winning, silver medal skating, (please Kwan go again. Oh please!). Yet, the Mainlanders seem to want I don't know how to express it. And they're perfectly NT, functional. They can do much better than this. It's like they don't give a bleep about thier own futures, because Gasp we were invaded 60 years ago! (There seems to be lots of effort hacking Japanese websites to remind them), and of course playing warcraft).



Callista
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Feb 2006
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 10,775
Location: Ohio, USA

09 Jan 2011, 1:33 pm

Yes and no.

NTs, as they grow, pick up lots of cultural expectations and integrate them into their own identities (autistics do this too, just not as strongly). Some of those expectations are about what is expected of adults. To the extent that they integrate those expectations into their own identities, they're not "faking it"; but apparently almost all adults do feel like they're faking maturity to some extent.


_________________
Reports from a Resident Alien:
http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com

Autism Memorial:
http://autism-memorial.livejournal.com


Jonsi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,219

09 Jan 2011, 1:57 pm

My question is why we have to be fake, why can't we be honest with eachother? The world won't explode because some one was a little immature.



Another_Alien
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 27 Jan 2009
Age: 60
Gender: Male
Posts: 163
Location: UK

09 Jan 2011, 2:03 pm

Whether you're mature doesn't really depend on how you act, it's whether you can pass certain 'acid tests':

- Can you hold down a good responsible job?
- Can you maintain a successful relationship, and possibly be a successful parent?
- Can you live independently?
- Are you a car owner?

If you can do these things you're mature, regardless of how you act.



Mysty
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,762

09 Jan 2011, 2:25 pm

Seems like much of maturity is about knowing how to act, and choosing to. So, no, it's not faking it.


_________________
not aspie, not NT, somewhere in between
Aspie Quiz: 110 Aspie, 103 Neurotypical.
Used to be more autistic than I am now.