Posted On May 14, 2014 By In Advice For Women, Girlzone

Five Lessons You’re Never Too Old to Learn

 
 

I have a curiosity for new experiences and adventures, an originality quest that lately has caused me to be reckless with my intentions and sloppy with my boundaries. The careful deliberateness I had cultivated evaporated somewhere between devirginizing  a twenty-six year old and my eighteenth bacon wrapped hot dog in a month span. Here are some lessons I have been privy to lately that I have realized you are never too old to learn:

 

1.  Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

This statement encompasses a range of possibilities, from drinking on a school night and growing our your unibrow, to Snapchatting your nipple and having a one night stand when you would have been just as satisfied with a medium cheese pizza. You are an adult! You can do all of these things and more, but that doesn’t mean you should.

 

2.  Don’t kiss your friends.

This is where boundaries melt somewhere between slop and awkward.  There is something disconcerting about a platonic penis poking you in the back while you try to decide if that kiss was a really bad or a really good idea. I have never before considered the implications of such a slip, as growing up on films like Now and Then and My Girl have easily romanticized this idea of opposite sex friendship to me. But you’re not thirteen years old nor coming of age and your mutual friends are going to throw up if they learn about this.

 

3.  Stop confessing your feelings via email.

Once is alright, twice is questionable, but the thrice emotional confession via the interweb borders on the threshold of mute hermitry. Although it is much more natural for me to operate in a written world, for most people, and especially men, I can imagine this is not ideal. I’ve confessed my feelings in writing for men in a range of seriousness- from someone I had dated for two weeks to two years, from explanations, to love admissions, to rejections and inquiries.  It has gone well 3% of the time.  Sometimes you need to be an adult and communicate with your freaking face.

 

4.  Don’t cut your own bangs.

I’ve tried trimming these wisps of wonder over my sink, years ago…and last week, before going out and while my sister was sleeping – and it never, ever fairs well. I know first hand the awkward advances you’ll get from fellows that fancy a mental institution-esque hair cut when you emerge from the bathroom twenty minutes, two centimeters, and a pair of jagged scissors later.

 

5. You should never read children Bambi on Mother’s day.

I provide childcare at a highly populated lesbian and Jewish organization on Sunday mornings, and on the morning of Mother’s Day a beautiful ceremony was held for mothers.  I think Mother’s Day was especially dear to these children because many of them have multiple mothers.  Post ceremony, I took the children downstairs and they decided they wanted me to read them stories.  They all voted on BambiIn case you forgot, Bambi’s mother gets shot and killed and Bambi never sees her again. This was atrocious to read after we had just spent all morning appreciating their mothers.

 

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Equally lovely and ferocious in nature, Allyson Darling resides in San Francisco. She writes nonfiction essays about sex, relationships, and pantries (and sometimes about having sex in pantries).