Grow Up Already

What’s the difference between a cluster of stylish, chattering women and a shiver of sharks? One travels in fierce, loyal packs that smell blood a mile away. The other lives in the ocean. 

Truth be told, that’s a hurtful stereotype. Ten shabby-chic ladies with San Pellegrino between almond-manicured fingers & beachy waves framing bronzed cheekbones may well open their toned, James Avery ringed arms to this dowdy engineer. I’m sure the fact that I regress to a sad, teenage pariah in their presence & drip jealousy all over their eco-friendly flats makes me the life of the party. What’s the statute of limitations on childhood rejection? Thirty years must be getting close.

After just such an encounter last weekend*, I gave my social distress a day to reach equilibrium and then I tried to put my meltdown into words.

• Me - “I desperately want to fit in with the popular girls. And I really, really don’t.”

• Son being more mature than his mom - “What do you mean by ‘popular girls’?”

• Me reeking of stale insecurity - “Beautiful people having fun & being fun in a big group. That’s just not my scene and I so wish it was. Like so extremely much.”

• Son doing his best to understand - “Okay. What exactly is your scene?”

• Me answering from pure anticipation - “Watching game 7 of the NBA finals with my family of course!”

• Son stating the logical deduction - “So you’d rather be with them than with us?”

• Me suddenly stumped - “Well…no. Of course not. That’s not…I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”

• Son seeking reason where none exists - “I’m really just trying to understand!” 

And that, my friends, is how you know the better parent raised your kids. (Jason also feels the same way in reverse, so it works out.)

Let’s conduct a little post-mortem here. I didn’t get outsmarted by my barely-legal-drinking-aged progeny. Not in the way it looks, anyway. I don’t want to trade one scene for another. I want to have all the scenes! I want to be everything, everywhere, all at once rather than the creature I am with inclinations and limitations. It’s a logical desire but an absurd expectation. To illustrate, here’s how the other half of the Kruppa Troopas processed my meltdown.

• Daughter - “Dad, do you ever feel out of place in social settings?”

• Jason - “Sure.”

• Daughter - “Does it bother you?”

• Jason - “No.”

End of story. God, what I wouldn’t give to be that man. Ack! See? I did it again! Envying something I’m not rather than valuing what I am, wanting everything when I have so much. (For real though, Jason’s tough not to envy.)

It reminds me of the narrative a prophet told King David after David took the wife of his loyal soldier and had the solder quietly killed when pregnancy ensued. The prophet Nathan told David there was a scandal in the community that needed his wise judgment. A rich man had needed to butcher a lamb for some guests but wouldn’t use any of his own. Instead he took the only lamb, a beloved family pet, from a poor man to feed the guests. Nathan asked David what should be done to this “rich man” given the cruel circumstances - 

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” 2 Samuel 12:5-6

Nathan promptly dunked on David with a resounding “You are the man!” (v.7). Then Nathan laid into Israel’s king for a solid two paragraphs of tongue lashing worth three millennia of preservation. Plus such a list of excruciating consequences that you actually start to feel sorry for David by the end. A little.

I’m not suggesting that introversion is like royal riches and extroversion just a solitary lamb, but I do see a similar conviction in Nathan’s story and mine. Not that social sensitivity is a king’s quality and compulsive confidence a poor man’s pet, but holding one while craving the other is patently ungrateful. 

So I’ll take the advice of Kruppa Troopas and biblical prophets alike, the wisdom of the ages and of Gen Z. I’ll apply the takeaways that I can’t help but see - (1) be myself and own it, (2) applaud others doing the same, (3) replace envy with gratitude, & (4) grow up already. I can do that.

* To be clear, the wonderful women last weekend did open their arms to me, and my meltdown was completely my fault. I was the shark not them, my mental comparison the blood in the water. 

(PS The eco-friendly flats in the pic are mine, as are the Crocs. I drink San Pellegrino and wear James Avery myself, but I’ll never understand the meaning of ‘shabby-chic.’ That and bronzer will forever remain a mystery to me.)