Please tell me about your interesting young adult!

[Thesnailonthewhale]

All the young adults I've met recently and that's about a dozen between the ages of about 19 and 24. Are all so fucking boring.

My 22-year-old colleague who I have to sit next to, lives at home with his parents, no expenses or bills to pay, it's not saving for anything so essentially has to ground a month pocket money and almost infinite spare time. I asked him what have you done this weekend, or last week or whatever. This last weekend he spent three evenings watching twitch streams about Pokémon until about 3:00 in the morning. Didn't go out with any friends. Didn't go and see the world. Didn't go. Didn't do anything. Just sits around watching TV watching live streams.

Another one who's about 23 who I know through a friend. We were having lunch together and I asked her what does she get up to then in her spare time. Nothing apparently. Hasn't been to see the world. Hasn't been visiting anywhere. Not interested in galleries, exhibitions festivals literally nothing. And so we find out what it is she does with her time, and it's just a shrug and she might be watching something on Netflix or whatever.

When I was their age I was going I was going to Europe for the weekend getting the cheapest flight possible, staying in a hostel and exploring the world. Going out with my friends we'd go to museums and art galleries because we were boring like that. Or we'd go to a theme park for a day or whatever. But we do something and have interesting stories to tell.

So please restore my faith in young adults and tell me the interesting things they are up to please!!!

And the poor lass has to share an office with you and I'm sure she has some equally unkind names for you.

I don't care....

I agree that it is not unreasonable to expect them to be able to chit chat. But so many people give them a free pass, no wonder they can't 🤷‍♀️

Don't be ridiculous.

Where as the OP does come across as being a bit rude in her posting style, three general, non-intrusive conversation starters over two days, with someone you are working alongside is hardly an interrogation.

They'd get on with mine. 20yo buys charity shop clothes and alters them into something else. She's directing a play, publicity officer of the cocktail society, is costume designer for another play and is having the time of her life.

24yo is on holiday in South Korea, runs a weekly D&D game and attends another, and set up a film club with his old high school friends. He's saving up for a trip to Japan next.

DS2 is living in a rented flat by himself in Tallinn where he's on a two year postgrad course at the conservatoire. He has a country wide museum pass which he uses regularly and has already visited several other Estonian cities as well as taking a day trip to Helsinki by himself.

I'm quite impressed 😁

I agree with this.

Being able to 'get along with' someone, and engage in light conversation is a skill that everyone should have to some extent. Obviously it will come more naturally to some than others, in the same way maths does or learning to drive or playing football - some people find it easy, and some don't, but good parents support and encourage those that don't find a skill easy to work harder at mastering it. They should do even more so when it is a life skill that is so important whatever roles you go in to in life.

Of course, there are people on here that boast of having no friends and being happy 'with their own little family' or boast that they won't open their front door if they aren't expecting someone, so this might not be the best forum to get a range of opinions.

I've been volunteering alongside several teenagers (once a week) over the last few months, including two with a diagnosis of Autism, and they have all been able to participate in 'chat' with me. Some readily at the start, some needed to get to know me a bit first, but it really is a skill anyone who is old enough to be in the world of work ought to be doing a lot of work on if they can't yet do it.

You're giving the impression that you're not quite well and shouting at us that you understand that you're the problem now isn't helping.

I hope the department that she's linked to are doing a good job with the work experience.

She isn't there for your entertainment, you make it sound as if she owes you something and she's probably cottoned onto that so she doesn't want to talk to you.

Did you present the cake story as if it was something interesting?

I agree with the person who says that she's doing grey rock

She's probably perfectly capable of chatting away.

why was Keynes was wrong ?

I have the absolute pleasure and privilige of working with a young man who is studying for his phd in my field. He is so interested, interesting and lovely to be around. He is humbly eager to learn but a fully fledged expert professional already. He takes trips all over the uk to learn more about his field and takes holidays to very interesting places. He is thoughtful about everyone he interacts with and takes real interest in them. It seems like all he does is feed into the amazing human he's becoming. It gives me hope that there are people like this who will impact on the world in the future.

could you have her help with your tasks ? even if you dont have to talk much ?

Maybe.

Mine's 18 in 2.5 months, so I guess nearly a young adult. They help organise protests against fascism and are currently learning self defence classes in case any of the people they are opposing try to attack their side. They sing classical music, like to go to cabaret shows and folk music evenings and they're often out seeing friends, going to museums, theatre, or opera.

A funny thing is although they seem so rebellious in many ways they have totally refused to go to any over 18 venues because they don't want to get ID'd or carry fake ID, but they do want to go clubbing and to more cabaret stuff after their birthday. I'm not sure we'll ever see them again after that 😅

But I agree it's not so much boring as more kids (I suspect most are fine) might not know how to make smalltalk and are awkward around others, and COVID didn't help for many. This is why we made our kids do things like go to the corner shop, order things for themselves in restaurants, go to a bar to ask for some juice etc from an early-ish age because we didn't want them to be young people who found basic human interaction scary or cringey. They hated it at first, but the upshot is they can interact with strangers.

@Echobelly they organise protests against fascism?

So they are worried about fascism? In the UK?

@ThatPearlkitty slight derail but apparently he failed to account for changes in behavioural dynamics during periods of inflation and unemployment. Just ask Friedman and my daughter. It was a key topic over Mother’s Day lunch (much to the chagrin of my fervently democratic socialist parents!)

She is currently in her room practising the penny whistle. Love her!

I don’t find that especially surprising TBH. I’m about as unflappable as they come and I’m a bit worried nowadays.

@Echobelly good on ‘em. My great uncle was a teenage protester at Cable Street.

Specifically the group is counterprotesting fascist groups (and I do mean fascists, not people who are a bit right wing) who are deliberately matching thorough areas with a large immigrant population in order to be intimidating. Sometimes they do get their routes moved, but other groups turn up to make it clear the fascists are not supported. Nb, they are not there looking for a fight at all and the police keep both sides well apart in any event.

So it's a quite specific group to counter intimidating behaviour at the end of the day, and I fully support that.

I think this is a you problem.
this sounds relentless. At 17 I would not have wanted to talk to some random older colleague about this stuff. Maybe leave them all alone?

I think the art of conversation has been lost amongst the younger generation tbh. There's a brilliant comedian on insta who takes off the lack of social skills of Gen Z, she's excruciating to watch but absolutely nails it. The other phenomenon is the Gen Z stare....

I do the same with my 11 and 8 year old. They get sent to buy stuff, ask for the napkins and the bill or whatever in restaurants, ask for directions. They will both chat away but have a tendency to monologue people so we're constantly trying to teach them conversational skills too, how to ask questions of others, wait their turn etc. It's a long road but hopefully we'll get there.

I'm determined they will leave home being able to hold a decent conversation (and make an edible meal, and do laundry, and understand budgeting, and navigate a city, and and and...)

Someone I know who works on reception in a student block says that loads of them now don't want to chat and just come and collect parcels making as little eye contact as possible, in contrast with 5-10 years ago. He blames phones but who knows.

These kids were teenagers in lockdown 😬

Such a mean-spirited way to speak about someone who is not even an adult yet.

If this young person was born in 2009, they have never known a life without the internet. They have quite likely spent their childhood and teen years being bombarded with addictive social media content, being exposed to devices literally designed to steal their attention. They spent part of their childhood/early adolescence in lockdown, unable to attend school in real life or develop their social skills.

They're now coming of age into a fractured society, where they're training or studying for jobs that might not even exist in a few years' time. They likely know that if they try to improve their lot by going to university they will be saddled with 40 years' worth of debt, under repayment terms which the government can arbitrarily decide to alter. They are being bombarded with messaging about how home ownership is near-impossible, about how unaffordable life is.

Of course it's important that we as a society help these young people and try to broaden their horizons, improve their social skills and help them learn appropriate office behaviour. You're not wrong OP for thinking that they need to learn the art of small talk and how to interact with colleagues. But the way you write about them is so nasty and lacking in empathy for the challenges these young people face. Writing them off as "boring fucking young people" says a lot about you.

I don’t think they are keeping their wild weekends from OP! They could simply say they went out to a club with friends, I expect OP would not have asked them what drugs they’d had and who they went home with. Cos, you know, it’s a workplace, where small talk suffices. Someone on work experience or early in their career would do well to learn the art.

OP, I find lots (not all!) of the young people (under, say, 25) I encounter really lacking in any get up and go. I think a combination of living their lives online, and having had a massive set back in their socialisation due to Covid. Probably also a bit due to the way that generation have been somewhat coddled.

I’ve been in a professional job since I was 22. Most of my first ten years were with colleagues quite a bit older, who I didn’t have a lot in common with on the face of it. I always managed to have a pleasant chat!

DD is at uni so not much spare cash for activities. She is going through a phase of experimenting with recipes, sews her own clothes or adapts charity shop finds, goes clubbing with friends, occasional cheap weekends away, concerts and the gym. And lots of Netflix and board games with flatmates.
DS goes climbing, studies, works part time, goes the gym and goes out to bars with friends or hangs out at their flats.
Not especially exciting but both busy. DD would probably say she does nothing, but she’s shy!