That Awkward Age

There come times and situations in a person’s life when one’s comfort zone disappears. Those cumbersome years of adolescence, the mid-life crisis period, the four-hour sensation of oblivion after watching an Adam Sandler movie: they all leave you feeling like you are alone in the universe with nothing in common with those around you.

Well, dear readers, I have yet again encountered a time of awkwardness and separation. Since moving away from my beloved Chicago and settling in to “the burbs”, I have had little chance to find people in the area with whom I can relate. My few attempts have failed miserably; it appears that I am the only 24-year-old, single, college-educated person in the county. I am now caught between two opposite age groups, and this fact has been illustrated in several humorous ways. Two examples in particular illustrate my situation very well:

The Older Crowd
Last week, I was invited to attend the College Church on the school campus, and sit with the congregation pastor during the service. Pastor Deborah is a very sweet woman, about sixty years in age, and married to a retired professor. After the service, since Deborah had some work to do for the church, she introduced me to a short, grandmotherly woman named Dot and charged Dot to take me to her Sunday School class.

There were about twenty people in the class, sitting in folding chairs and sofas arranged in a circle in the church parlor. The SS teacher started preaching, and since I had already heard the sermon he chose, I allowed my mind to wander a bit. After dwelling on a couple topics, I suddenly became aware of some extraordinary facts about that morning. First, I had not seen anyone my own age in the sanctuary. There was a group of baby-faced teens and college students in the back, and a large group of middle aged and elderly people in the front pews, but I didn’t remember seeing one person in the mid-twenties range. Second, out of all the people to whom I had been introduced during the course of the morning, not one of them were under the age of fifty, and the majority of them were over sixty. It struck me that I was at that moment encircled by women with fluffy hair and hearing aids. It was like that moment in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds when Tippi Hendren suddenly realizes that dozens of crows are staring at her from all angles of the school playground. Not quite that creepy, but just as unsettling.

Not that I mind old people; in fact, I enjoy spending time with people older than myself. However, it was a little discouraging since I was hoping to find some people my own age that I could spend time with. After the class was over, I politely turned down invitations to join the class for lunch at the local buffet and went home, resolving to get the demographics of the next church I was planning to visit.

The Younger Crowd
A couple days ago, I wandered into the admissions office on campus to see if I could find someone who could drive me to the airport for a fee. This week being the start of the Bears’ training camp on campus, a popular time for school visits, there were several prospective students and their parents waiting in line to talk to the secretary. As I waited in line, a group of college seniors sitting to one side caught my eye. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldnÂ’t have noticed them, but two of them were staring at me in a very forward fashion. It was obvious they thought I was a transfer student. Brazen admiration has never been my favorite quality of the male sex, so I decided to mess with them a little.

I smiled back at them politely, which they seemed to get a kick out of. When I got to the front of the line, the secretary asked me if I was a new student or a transfer. Raising my voice just a little to make sure I would be heard, I said: “Oh, actually I’m a professor.” There was a thunk, and I turned to see that one of the boys had half fallen out of his chair. It was a grand moment.


So here I am, stranded between the well-advanced and the prepubescent. Maybe all the twenty-somethings are in hiding. Either that, or there is some supernatural curse over the town, like in Children of the Corn, and all the young singles of the city are sent out into the bean fields, never to return. If I go without posting for more than a month, you’ll know what happened to me. Just tell the police to look for my body among the seed wheat.

My Humble Abode... In Video!