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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Young men and women talk back to their elders about life, sex and the new rules of engagement.
Sep 16, 2002 | Riding San Francisco's L Taraval streetcar home from work one afternoon last year, sitting across from a rangy, athletic-looking young man with a goatee, I realized I was no longer young.
For several years I had been passing as, if not young, at least not old, not irrelevant, not a clueless asshole with neither respect for youth nor even a memory of what it's like. I'd been getting by. I'd been a rock musician and a careless bohemian and I knew how to slouch and avert my eyes, move with insolent slowness and ape a kind of apathetic teenage coolness. Truth be told, I still felt like a teenager: wary in public, like a visitor without a hall pass, fearing rebuke, trying to stay low and blend in for my own safety.
It was the young man's glance, or rather lack of glance, that shocked me. For I had developed over the years a subtle but habitual gesture of recognition of youth, a nod of the head that spoke of solidarity, that said, as the gap of age grew, that I still was on the side of youth and not with the adults. And I expected some recognition in return, some validation that I still held a marginal membership in that world of endless energy, quick-witted alertness and physical power.
It's true that a certain caution had crept into my life. Because of the penury that my slacker ways had brought me, I had been disguising myself as an adult in order to make money. The disguise had been getting better and better. For a period, I wore ties and slacks and leather shoes. In an epic gesture of accommodation, I had cut my hair. But even though I no longer looked particularly young, I thought my pedigree of youthfulness shined through.
That afternoon, though, it was not the shock of being called "sir" for the first time. It was more like literally ceasing to exist. It was the shock of being passed over in that arrogant and effortless way youth in its delirious solipsism has of passing over whatever is not shiny enough, quick enough, lustrous enough to warrant attention. This was the first signal that, as one letter writer put it recently, youth of today avert their eyes from my generation as if we were derelicts on the street.
So, being curious about this passage into irrelevancy, and realizing that only those who truly have forgotten what it's like to be young fail to realize that they are old, I inquired of readers of the "Since You Asked" column what it was like to be young today, and what my generation looked like to them. The responses were numerous and quite moving. The issues they raise seem well worth thinking about and acting upon. Youth cried out that we seem selfish to them, that they see us as a lucky and indulged generation, and that struck a chord and held out some hope. For if certain ills of our world do stem from the selfishness of a whole generation, then the generation that follows, seeing our faults, might correct them in its own march to power.
Therein lies a bridge between us, although one fraught with ironic self-recognition. That is, it's still about us, isn't it? Even as we inquire of youth, what we inquire is, "How do we look?" Indeed, some letter writers pointed that out, while many others raised the myriad challenges particular to this age that cannot be laid at the doorstep of the boomers: AIDS, for instance, and its attendant effect on sexual relationships; the Internet boom and crash in which young and old conspired equally; the explosion of information and options about marriage, childbearing and work that, even absent a '60s-engineered dismantling of social institutions, would make formerly clear choices fraught with ambiguity.
So listening to the young needn't be a narrow exercise in self-recrimination; only some of the letters address the endless cycle of generational conflict. What is more important is that youth define itself and that others listen. One letter writer, Suzanne Morse, a young academic who has studied how the media portrayed "Generation X," pointed out that the media has too often talked about youth and too rarely to youth. "In other words," she said, "it allowed the media to impose their perceptions of younger people on the younger generation without actually giving younger people a voice to define themselves."
So here is a chance for the boomer generation, through the supple and democratic medium of the Internet, to hear the voices of those in their 20s, and perhaps to respond. They are angry words at times, baffled words, words of quiet despair and bitterness, but also words of resigned hope and proud perseverance.
One hopes some good may come of this, that some people, hearing these raw and honest words, will be inspired to work, to change, to keep listening. For it would be sad indeed if we, the generation of the "generation gap," blithely changed places with our elders, learned no lessons from our war, and quietly became what we beheld.
-- Cary Tennis
Dating
I'm 28. Hope that's youthful enough for you.
Being in a relationship today is like walking into a hail of gunfire with no bulletproof vest. You take your life in your hands every day.
Condoms, condoms, condoms. Of course. Always.
You try to date guys your own age, but they really only want anonymous fuck bunnies. Fuck and run, fuck and run, fuck and run. I'm tired.
So you decide one day, "I'm only going to date rich older men. To hell with my neo-feminist ideals; bring on the sugar daddy! But every man over 40 who's single with cash always says right before you have sex, "We need to talk." Then he tells you he has herpes. (Thanks to the carefree '60s, '70s and '80s, I guess.)
Plus the old guys always act like they are so much smarter than you. Well, genius, if you're that fucking smart how come you didn't know your wife was fucking the guy who built your patio? How's that alimony treating you, asshole? Why can't you keep it up? Why am I here?
If you let a guy pay your way, he will treat you like a prostitute and you will eventually feel like one.
So you date younger guys. Or at least you try. At least they want to have sex all the time. So that's a bonus. Sort of. They have enthusiasm if anything, but it's sort of like an all-you-can-eat buffet at Denny's. It wasn't great, but at least the portions were large.
You find a long-term guy. Or so he says. He's 31 and Jewish and his parents would give you both their kidneys if they could just marry this sucker off. He's the last of his friends to be single. He wants to be in love with you. He tries. Only you don't know it's all an act. You take the conversion classes. You pick out your new Hebrew name. You wonder if you'll have a boy or a girl first. You never see the signs that he's a classic narcissist -- an obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive control freak. You never stop to ask yourself why, despite everyone's best efforts, he's single at 31 and has been for ages. You never ask that question until he disappears for two days and then calls the police on you when you show up at his apartment to find out what's going on.
Right, sorry. I didn't realize that you couldn't fit me in among your alphabetized CDs and color-coded slacks. Sorry for disturbing the order of your sad, lonely life with my new sheets, pillows and gifts. I didn't mean to mess your life up by adding love to it. Motherfucker.
You eventually decide to stop calling severe psychological disorders "charming personality quirks" and take out an Internet personal ad. You remind yourself that you were the prom queen for christ's sake; surely someone will want to date you. People used to like you, right? You like your work. You're a size 2-4 depending on the time of the month. You get asked out lots, just not by people who aren't alcoholics or drug addicts. You're really excited when your in box fills up. Then it tops 100 in less than five days and it's too much. You realize half these yahoos didn't read your profile. They just looked at the picture. You just delete everything.
Then you adopt a dog and stow the gross of condoms behind the waffle iron you never use. You just give up. It's not worth it. You'll never be able to afford a house anyway. You'll never be able to afford kids. You'll certainly never see a Social Security check. You just pray that you die in your sleep sooner rather than later.
Wait!!!! Is that the phone? Maybe it's him! My guy, my dream, my hope, my salvation ... Nah, it's probably just someone I owe money to.
Ah, youth. Wasted on the young, my ass.
-- Katy Medders
