But I'm not ready to be 18!

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Well, it's my birthday in less than a month, and I will enter the official adulthood. But I'm honestly not ready to be an adult; I haven't learned half the things I was supposed to by now!

I can't cook (except for toast, and pizza ), I know nothing about sex or women that I could encounter somehow later in life, I can't drive (I don't want to but everyone keeps bloody telling me to!!), I've never had a job and I don't know how to get one on my own accord. Or at least if I did know, I wouldn't have the confidence. I also don't own a mobile phone, and thus don't know how to use them. Ahhh overload!!

Unless you're planning on moving out sometime soon, then you still have plenty of time to accomplish all those things.

Also, I'm almost twenty, and I haven't accomplished any of that stuff that you have yet to accomplish. Nobody says that you have to know how to do those things by the time you turn eighteen.

That's exactly how I felt as well, although I was encouraged to practice driving, kinda against my will, and I got the drivers licence when I turned 18. Other than that, I realised that it didn't really matter than I turned 18. Even now 2 years later at 20 I don't feel or behave much different than when I was 17. The fact of turning 18 can be a formality if you want it to.

I felt the exact same way when I was turning 18. I just wasn't ready.

Nah, adulthood doesn't start till you're 30- that's when your brain fully matures.

Most people don't grow up until after university/equivalent.

same with me I turn 18 on 28th of April and I basically feel the same way...but in my case im expected to move out when I turn 18 or at least pay my fair share which means getting a job...if only I could find a job where I do not have to be in a social enviornment.I would love to have a job cleaning a place after hours unfortunately no one is hiring...

Don't worry, it'll be Ok.
It's a bit like driving lessons - you don't really learn how to drive until you've passed your test and get out on the road.
18 and beyond is where the fun really starts.

And for the record: I didn't leave home until I was 20, didn't drive until I was 35, still can't cook (thank God for microwave ovens!), didn't own a phone of any sort until I was 30-odd, didn't have a mobile until I was past 40. And so on.

No one becomes an adult over night. Turning 18 doesn't mean bam you magically know how to do everything. 18 is just a number for when you are considered an adult. Some don't become adult until they are in their late twenties or early twenties and it's about responsibilities and handling things.

Me neither.

Age is just a relative number invented by NTs on an NT scale of time. So is the whole concept of adulthood. So you are 18 years old... but 18 what? That only means the earth has circled the sun 18 times. So how does that make you any different than if the earth had circled the sun 17 times or 19 times? You are still the same person inside. Just be yourself and all will be OK.



When you shed that LOL acronym you will know that you have taken a giant step to maturity. So many people these days can only communicate using one liners and such acronyms. Consider yourself fortunate that you can actually create literate sentences and paragraphs that actually say something like you did in your post. Most NTs can't do this these days or so it seems.



Again consider yourself fortunate that you are not a slave to an ear dildo. You go driving down the road and get stuck behind people in cars ahead of you as they shove this thing in and out of their ear, behaving as if they were really getting a huge thrill out of it while dragging their tail in traffic and preventing you from living your life at your own pace. It is such a selfish thing to do. I absolutely hate the blasted things and see them as an excuse for not interacting with the people who are physically around you. I own a throwaway cellphone for emergency use only when traveling, but never use it at all and the minutes just continue to accumulate from year to year. Each year when it comes time to renew it, I must figure out how the thing works all over again... and I am a techie too.

Mobile phones are quite the opposite of signs of maturity, I think.
Anyway, I didn't know any of those things at 18 either.

I've not met someone who used that description of age before, other than myself. I'm sure it's not rare but oddly comforting to read it here. It is true, orbiting the sun a whole no of times doesn't make you what you are, you make what you are with the raw material of your genetics & your environment, your responses to those and your decisions and attitudes.

If you choose to fit in with what other people expect of you, then you will always disappoint somebody because expectations differ. Grow, try, improve, enjoy life, but don't do it to fit in with other people's opinion of what is 'mature'. Mature can be a code for being very dull and unimaginative, conforming (even in their acts of rebellion, often the same old thing) and giving up on those harmless things that truly make you happy.

Carve out your own path on your journeys round the sun simonono, and don't worry about the number, it's only the quality and direction of your life that matters.

I didn't either.


Oh, and mobile phones - it's not the phone, it's how you use it.

And some, no more than 2 feet away from where I'm sitting, don't even manage it at more than twice that.

Maturity is just another highly subjective term used to make people conform. It's up to you when or if you do, age is just a number that has little to no impact on who you are and what you're capable of.

If you're not being shoved out the door, don't worry about it. Not much else changes. It might feel bad if other people are doing things you can't or aren't ready to do at that age, though.