10 Signs You’re Becoming An Old Soul

1. You complain about kids these days.

I am 26 years old. By all accounts, this is still categorized as being a “young person.” But that doesn’t stop me from complaining about young people all the time. I do not understand them. I don’t get why teenage kids wait until the last possible second to jump through the doors of the Metro in DC, and then scream excitedly as they have to pry the door open to get their friends into the car. I think skateboarders are obnoxious. If there are a group of teenagers loudly sitting by me in a restaurant, I will move tables.

2. You don’t like haircuts that are “complicated.”

What with the colored streaks and the bangs across the eyes.

3. You get hungry at 6 p.m.

Every cool person I know eats dinner at like 9:30 p.m. I don’t know how they do this. Do they have a snack at 5:30? Does their hipness somehow act as an appetite suppressant?

4. You don’t understand why the music is so loud.

When I’m at a bar with my friends, I don’t like screaming over a dubstep bass drop when they ask me how my job is. I would like to be able to tell them “terrible and soul crushing” in a normal speaking voice, thank you very much.

5. You have perfected the FOPO.

FOPO stands for Freak Out Peace Out, which is also called by some the “Irish Goodbye.” This is the move when you’re at a bar, and you get tired because you’re an old soul, but instead of being a normal person and saying goodbye to everyone OR bucking up and staying for another few drinks, you take the third option which is to slink away into a corner and then run out of the bar door when no one is looking. I had this move down by my sophomore year of college, to the point where my friends would want to accompany me any time I went to the bathroom because they (rightly) assumed if they lost sight of me for one second, I was gone.

6. You wonder why everything is so expensive.

A burger for $16? HOW IS A BURGER 16 DOLLARS?

7. You think about the weather when you get dressed.

When I get dressed, I sometimes consider color coordination, whether something fits me well, if an outfit is “complete.” Sometimes I do this. Mostly, though, the most important part of my dressing is checking my Weather app on my phone and then layering appropriately. Yes. The thing I am most proud of when dressing is my ability to “layer appropriately.”

8. You stop caring about society’s conventions.

At a certain point in my twenties, I really stopped giving a shit about conventions that I decided were ridiculous. For one, why do people eat certain foods at certain times? This is ridiculous. Food is food. It is calories. I will eat steak and potatoes for breakfast. I will eat Eggos for dinner. Why? Because who cares? Food goes in, I get energy, I keep moving. I refuse to adhere to society’s conventions about what food should be eaten when.

9. You nap.

I consider myself one of the greatest nappers of my generation. My roommates can attest to this. I nap pretty much every day, and for a while got in the habit of the “double nap,” where I would wake up and write from 6 a.m. – 8 a.m., then sleep from 8-9, then get up, do some stuff, come home and nap from 3-4, then do more stuff. If you think I haven’t gone triple nap, clearly you don’t me. I welcome all comers. Just try and out nap me.

10. You find out about internet memes years after they happen.

On two separate occasions now I have pitched articles to the fine editors at Thought Catalog about funny things I saw on the Interwebs, and both times they gently informed me that the funny things I wanted to write about were years old. Not days old. Not weeks old. Years old. I have stopped even suggesting these articles at this point, because apparently I am the equivalent of the internet fuddy duddy who calls up his friends in 2012, asking them if they’ve seen these hilarious cats playing keyboards on the “Netflicks.” Screw that.