13h ago

How did you become an adult? Any advice to impart?

How did you get your first job? Apartment/house? Dating?

I ask because I really only did so after years of bouncing around from colleges, summer abroad programs, living with friends, and really just use Zillow or StreetEasy to look.

(I also ask because I want a distraction from the world that isn't entertainment or documentary/non-fiction and often daydream about what things I could have done different had I known things - real life skills - earlier.)

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My shitty Midwest city needed a co-signer for me to move into an apartment, even with a roommate. My parents refused, so I recruited a friend, rented a car and drove 2,000 miles away to a beach where I didn’t need a co-signer or shoes, for that matter. Had some rough times, but never looked back.
First apartment was a one bedroom in a famous SoCal beach that would drop in price by $100 in the winter because I guess demand would decrease. My roommate and I would alternate between taking the bedroom and the living room. There was a shitty, bulging waterbed in the bedroom that the previous tenant just left. It felt luxurious.
I could hear the water crashing all day and night, I never even needed a fan for cooling due to the breeze, and I could see the ocean (just a sliver) out the bedroom window. The living room window was above a dumpster, though, and some player in the building would always argue and break up with his girlfriends by that dumpster. We eventually nicknamed that dumpster the Dumpster of Love.
I worked shitty temp jobs for a while because I could type fast, but I kept working myself out of a job. I learned pretty hard that corporate America is about looking busy and not actually getting anything done. I routinely finished 3-day temp assignments before lunch and would get dismissed with only 4 hours pay for my trouble.
Eventually I had a friend who was working on a film production for a low budget company. They blew up cars and shit and were pretty popular overseas. My friend invited me to come to set and work for free for a week with the promise that they’d hire me for their next film. I had nothing better to do, so I gave them a week. I worked on bad movies with them for the next several years nonstop, getting paid, though. My friend quit after that first one.
A lot of this stuff says I’m either stupid or I was exploited or both. But I’m not mad. I still think it was much easier for my generation than the ones that followed. Also, everyone living a life worth living learns as they go, imo.

First apartment (outside of college dorms) was fairly smooth. I had classmates who lived off-campus and that put the idea in my head that this was feasible, I checked the nearby student-oriented options and picked one that ended up being far cheaper than university housing.
First date was a stroke of luck. Right after move-in my first semester of college there was a sort of club that I joined, and one of the other new people there became my best friend and then, within a short time, my girlfriend.
First job of any sort (20) was a small number of hours per week and a shoe-in through college connections. First job that supported myself (mid-20s) was from responding to a classified ad in the paper, for something I had the physicality for and also some distantly-related experience.
The one thing I would belabor to my past self is to eradicate the sense of shame. Go out there and do the things that feel like they'd be humiliating, say the things that you don't feel comfortable speaking up about (as long as the intentions are good). This includes asking for help when you need it, which is probably before the point when you really feel like you need it. You don't get life experience by things going smoothly and according to plan; you get it by going into the weeds. Never be averse to being a beginner, this is part of what keeps you fresh. There are lots of kinds of discomfort that are very fruitful.

I found a mechanical turk that granted wishes and told it to make me older. I do not recommend having the body of a mid 30 year old and the mind of a 13 year old. Ended up in a love affair with someone my age even though I was mentally a 13 year old. Left me messed up for a long time. I eventually stopped being old and went back to my normal age. If you want my advice, age normally, don't wish for adulthood on a mechanical turk.
- Deep Cut

First job out of uni:
you are interviewing for the industry not the job
thus, take whatever job will sign a paycheck into he industry you are comfortable working in (crappiest house in the nicest neighborhood approach)
from there people will probably start offering you jobs at random, even when you have like 1 months experience. More realistically take 12-18moonths at a shit job so you can complete a project and throw it on your resume, then look for your next hop (probably via a current coworker or internal posting or something)
government jobs are worth pursuing, if given the opportunity

Necessity. I got tired of flying by the seat of my pants and wanted stability. You have to give up some freedom to get to stability, but I don't lose sleep expecting the landlord knock or the collection letter in the mailbox.
I always wanted to get married and homestead. My twenties were nothing but turmoil and bad relationships and landlords. I got tired of always being behind on everything. Sometimes you have to go deeper in before you get out though. I walked to work for years. My wife and I bought a shitty camper and lived in it to save up money for a down payment on a house. When I had a car, it was always cheap.and something I could work on myself. We don't overindulge. My hobbies are cheap or free.
I'm not suggesting bootstrapping you way, I'm just telling you how I got here. We're still paycheck to paycheck, but our bills are met every month and sometimes we can afford a little splurge.
To answer your questions, and I will add this caveat, I did a lot of those things before everything got harder. I bought a house right before COVID. Your state might have programs for home buying that make it so you don't have to put down the whole down payment. We took a home buying class that turned us on to a government loan for rural properties that tolled our down payment into the loan somehow.
I met my wife online, but only because I used to stay up late smoking weed and reading personal ads for fun. Hers spoke to me so I answered. I probably don't have great advice there
Getting a job is always who you know. Not what you know. I didn't grow up wanting to be a baker but here I am. I got the job because my dad kept trying to get his friends to hire me as another way for me to stay under his thumb. I busted ass to get a job outside of his scope and stuck it out long enough to be top dog at any bakery I've worked at. I have 14 years experience now. There is no real incentive to staying at a job anymore, but a resume with few jobs that you stayed at a long time still really blows the wig back on your gen x recruiter.

Nothing is going to feel just right in your 20s. Take some risks so you don't end up dormant. Some will work out, most probably won't but you'll learn and grow.
Don't spend too much time online or playing video games. You won't get anything out of that and you'll fall behind the people who were putting themselves out there and finding personal growth through whatever avenues life tossed their way. And those avenues genuinely could be anything. My wife managed to turn post grocery store shift partying at the nastiest DIY punk warehouse you've ever seen into a very comfortable corporate career just through talking to the right people.
And yeah - don't fuck around with credit card debt and don't get addicted to alcohol or other drugs.
- Getting a cushy corporate job at a DIY punk show pretty accurately describes the modern day punk scene haha
- Agree with everyone about cc debt but one addendum:
  If you have a level head, go for the max limit allowed. Follow all other advice and auto-pay the statement balance every month no matter what. Never carry a balance, never pay a dime of interest.
  A high limit can come in handy for a once in a lifetime emergency expense where the debt is somehow not as bad as whatever problem money can solve. It also boosts your credit score if you are ever in a position to buy property - the agencies like to see that "this person only uses 2-5% of their credit limit".

Never get a credit card with a limit higher than a single average paycheque. Treat it like a debit card that's accepted for things that don't accept debit cards like certain hotels. If you don't have the cash in your bank account so that you can immediately pay it off in full within minutes of making a purchase, don't use it. Immediately trash all offers for increased limits. You do not want to go down the credit card debt rabbit hole. It's fun for awhile, and then suddenly you're sending half your take-home pay in interest alone to the bank.
- Immediately trash all offers for increased limits
  Nah you should accept the increase just don’t use it. Keeps your usage percentage low which helps your credit score
- 100% this. Credit card debt is a fuck

I didn’t really feel like an adult until I lived in a different country for a year and had to figure out literally everything on my own. Kind of a sink or swim situation where I forced myself to adapt without any safety net to rely on. I think just psychologically distancing oneself from family and friends is enough without going that far though, properly getting in the headspace of fully shouldering all responsibilities and decision making goes a long way. Understand that you truly are free and can steer your life in the direction you choose, there are countless material constraints along the way but they are all surmountable if you make the effort.
Don’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks and try to deprogram all the silly social expectations that have been beaten into us our whole lives. You are worth more than your labor and all the other social signifiers we’re told to value. Good vibes and genuine respect are worth far more than anything else. At the end of it all the only thing that matters is if you had a good time and hey, hopefully you were able to help others have a good time too.

trauma, partner did it, got extremely lucky once at uni.

Im in my mid 20s. I live with my parents. Ive never dated.

Parents basement to tradwife pipeline. I practiced cooking and cleaning like it was school once I realized I would likely never be able to provide for myself. Made sure I was a desireable support character; I cultivated some unique skills to distinguish myself from the other girls looking to be a maid wife.

Make a list of priorities for when you arrive in a new city/apartment. Useful if you move often and even if not since you'll be out of practice when you do
Mine is something like:
Take photos of every inch of apartment and backup to reduce chances of landlord fucking me over
Buy necessities (toiletries, stocked food, cleaning supplies, medicine, skincare, etc)
Update phone plan
Update renters insurance
Update documents (addresses, backing up new legal forms like rental lease, etc.)
Figure out the best transit routes to common necessities like bank, groceries, restaurants, pharmacy, exercise spot, etc.
Figure out 3rd places to regularly meet new people, make new friends, date, etc.
Find doctor/dentist/optometrist/etc when I get my health insurance stuff

I think about this a lot
I think mentorship is really important. Ideally we can get that from our parents, but in many cases either they don't know the answers or are just shitty. You have to find someone that is doing the thing you want to do, or being the person you want to be, and ask them what they did to get there. Ideally multiple times.

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