1) On work:
Once you are 22 your parents, grandparents, aunties so on and so forth tell you that you must begin to feel more responsible. All of a sudden, you are pushed into working and before you realise work becomes second priority after yourself. Sometimes, you get so frustrated that you begin grumbling to absolute strangers about a bad day at work. The best part is that you believe and behave like you’ve climbed Mount Calvary while everyone knows it is “just an ant hill” that you are struggling to cross. Soon someone will whisper… I am sorry boss you still gotta digest this fact…. Work is just the beginning.
2) Busy bee:
You suddenly become Miss Busy Bee. You want to have fun, but work won’t allow. You try to juggle, but multi-tasking you realise, is not your cup of tea. Everyone hates you for this “busy bee” attitude. Your friends taunt you time and again, your siblings whine about how you have time for friends and work and not for them, your parents grumble about how you have shoved away of all the household responsibilities. This is life darling and nobody is going to understand. Often, if you do manage to get time out, you rather prefer to spend it alone over a book or movie… (Ahaan… I think you now enjoy being busy for the world…really who cares if I am happy).
3) Pep talk from Mommy dearest: BEWARE
This is danger zone. You need to beware especially if the pep talk comes from your mom. Now, that you are 22, she assumes you are in the cradle of marriage. Every time you do anything wrong she is sure to relate it to post marriage situations. For eg. You get up late... mom comes to you… get up sweetheart… what will your in-laws and husband say…. They’ll say that your mom hasn’t even taught you to be up early. Woah… this is not even related but you know the mothers. “When you get married…when you have kids…how to deal with your in-laws”…is how the mommies begin their sentences on most occasions and that too when you haven’t come close to finding yourself prospective in-laws and husbands.
4) Envy:
Girls who are working in offices are envious of girls who have taken to studying instead and vice-versa. It is worst when such two girls are friends because they always end up comparing each others lives and how fortunate the other is. This in reality is envy x envy = envy square. No one is satisfied and “Miss envy” keeps growing and multiplying and trust me “envy” is emotionally draining.
5) Boredom and loneliness
At 22, nothing is going to be or feel like college or school. Lets hang out and Lets chill are words that are best for the bin.
And well… since this is the phase of all work and no play, monotony is bound to get the better of dull Jack. Often, you’d realise that none of your friends have time to spare for you, probably cause they all have suddenly learn to reckon with what I call “their responsibilities.” Sometimes, you just want to talk to someone and you begin dialing numbers of old friends, if you are lucky one of them will pick up, if you aren’t you can sit back and remember the good times you had with you Ex (poor you). If you have a best friend, its worst. You keep calling them until they pick up. After over 50 missed calls, your friend will get back to you saying… “listen get yourself a boyfriend and stop harrowing me.” You get upset with your friend and promise to never call him/her up until your ego quells and you finally give in. Then, you guys behave like nothing happened.
6) Boasting
Hmm… you know you are getting old, so all you have got to do is to boast about the good old days. How much I partied? How much I drank…uff the hangover…simply amazing yaar? And my resemblance to a chimney…. Mindblowing?
For, all you know, amidst all the work all the fun has dissipated. So all you have left is to boast about the good old days. And, for those unfortunate 22-year-olds, who’ve not gone beyond fine wine and dine yet, serves you right. :P Wake up…. Wake up
7) For all the single 22s out there… this one is for you:
If you are 22 and still single, believe me, you are going to be facing some tough time out there. Let me touch upon two most relevant issues:
The Callers: Boys from the past, with whom you’ve least interacted while still in your teens or whom you rather chose to keep an arms distance from, may suddenly start chasing you like hounds. Maybe they see you on Facebook or probably on Orkut… they see your relationship status and realise that you are single. And wow… in no time they’d be running for you telling you how much they loved you in school or college blah blah or how happy you’d have been if you would have been with them instead of being with that “old hag” who left you after washing dirty linen in public.
Probably, they are single and desperate and are expecting similar emotional crap from the opposite sex or May be they really love you and it is high time you figured it out.
What to do now? Safest bet: You are 22 and expected to be wise, learn to handle such situations with utmost maturity or simply play with your relationship status on networking sites. They’ll never figure out.
The Calling: Honestly, nobody cares if you want to be in a relationship or not, but everyone is out there to fix you with someone else. You know such people have this strange sense of what I’d explain as “The Calling,” where they believe that they are God-sent messengers of love and know who you really look good with and all that jazz….
If you talk to other singles of your age or slightly beyond, your friends love to assume that you are upto something fishy. There is incessant teasing and gossip that is bound to happen in the process (please don’t be disheartened). You are going to be the butt of all jokes and uncessary couple-pairing until you find yourself a guy. Worst case is if you happen to fall in love with the person you’ve been teased with, cause your friends and folks are not going to spare themselves the credit. Aww.. look at them, so cute na… you know I brought them together. Aghhhh!!
Keep Smiling and keep dreaming
Jane
