17 Reasons So Many People Have a Mid-Life Crisis in their 20s

1. You’re trying to live a lifestyle beyond your means. You’re always buying fancy things you can’t afford, like medicine or a bed.

2. You’ve come to the crushing realization that your current occupation isn’t just a temporary arrangement, but a career. Which isn’t exactly good news, since you’re unemployed.

3. You’re starting to look older. You get really depressed when you don’t get IDed at the club, so now you make sure the bouncer sees you getting dropped off in your mom’s Honda Odyssey.

4. You’re ridiculously over-critical of potential mates. You recently ended a first date before the main course came out, explaining, “I love you, but I’m not IN love with you.”

5. Everyone around you is making serious life decisions. Your friends have started to have babies and you really resent them for it. The babies, that is. “I wish you were never born,” you whisper into their little baby ears, cradling them while the parents exchange concerned glances. “Your existence makes me feel inadequate. Can you say ‘inadequate’?”

6. You can’t drink like you used to. You’re still hungover from New Year’s Eve 2014.

7. Weird old people things are happening to your body. Your back went out last weekend and you finally realized why your dad was such a dick all the time.

8. You’re single. And not like, “fun, no responsibilities” single. Like, “spinster” single. On your taxes, you tried to file your cat as a dependent. You got audited, but when you showed up with your Mr. Whiskers sweatshirt and matching coffee mug, the auditor was all like, “We’re so sorry to have troubled you.”

9. Every year your birthday provokes another existential crisis. You’re still trying to strike that perfect balance between making it clear that you are not particularly excited about your birthday (because, after all, birthdays aren’t a big deal for adults) and making it clear that you are not catastrophically depressed about your birthday (as the unceasing march of time erodes the meaningless expanse of paunchy flesh and dusty crevices you call a body).

10. You’re trying (and failing) to keep up with millennial trends. You went to the cool barbershop and asked for a trendy haircut, but now you look like Dubstep Nick Nolte. You tried vaping and couldn’t stop coughing.

11. You are repulsive to anyone under the age of 25. Last week you saw a cute 21-year-old at the bar and decided to approach her. You still have the smushed handprint from where she tried to manually swipe left on your face.

12. You can’t help but feel your life isn’t what it should be by now. You’ve started comparing your life to the life your parents had at your age. I mean, when your parents were 28 they owned a freaking home! The only thing you own is trolls on IMDB’s Game of Thrones message board.

13. You can’t turn your mind off from a never-ending stream of anxious thoughts. Every night you make sure you get your 8 healthy hours of lying in bed and obsessing over every bad thing that ever has or will happen to you.

14. You’re hopelessly overcome by nostalgia. You went to your parents’ house to help them clean out the garage and spent the whole time reading your middle school diary, listening to Third Eye Blind, and weeping.

15. You find yourself calling upon a higher power to provide your life with meaning. Last night you tried praying to Beyoncé.

16. You’re trying to “shake things up” by making dramatic changes to the most fundamental aspects of your life. Well, mostly just your Facebook cover photo.

17. You’re either really bad at math or you only plan on living to 50. As Mac DeMarco says in “Salad Days”:

Oh mama, actin’ like my life’s already over,
Oh dear, act your age and try another year.

Don’t believe those people who say life’s too short – life is ridiculously, tediously long. It’s like the longest thing you’ll ever do! And, contrary to how things may seem, you’re not even halfway done.