Responsibility. I don’t like it. I am trying to do all I can to avoid it. Some crazy people purposefully fill their lives with more and more responsibility.
They get married. They take out loans. They grease up their baby cannons and shoot out babies at 18 month intervals. They claw their way up the property ladder. And at work they sell their souls to the highest bidder, all in the hope of finally reaching the holy land and securing a place on The Board.
Not the dart board either. The Board of Directors.
If I was ever put on The Board of Directors I would constantly be glancing around the room, thinking “look at all these grown ups!” I wonder if they know I’m only 9 years old.
Procuring all this responsibility voluntarily seems utterly ludicrous to me. Responsibility is a like a chastity belt. It’s pointless and cruel. It stops us from being carefree and having fun.
I had to be responsible once. I had to make a grown up decision regarding a job. I did not want to make this decision. I was scared. If I accepted the job I’d face the daunting prospect of my new employer finding out I was just a 9 year old child in the body of a 28 year old.
And if I declined the job, I would be labelled as unambitious and indecisive.
The more I tried to ignore the decision, the more overwhelming it became. I tried handing over the baton of responsibility to my friends saying things like “whatever you decide, I’ll do it!” But as most of my friends are grown adults, they all refused and told me I had to decide this myself.
In the end I chose to follow my gut which told me to eat some cake and hide under the covers.
I’m sure the employer got the message when I didn’t show up for the last interview. And if they didn’t and they’re reading this, I’m very sorry. I know I look like an adult but I’m actually just a child on stilts. Please accept this drawing as a token of my apology.
Responsibility is like a game of dodgeball with the dodgeball covered in shit. Under no circumstances do I want the shit covered responsibility ball anywhere near me. No thank you. People are trying to chuck more and more responsibility at me and I’m trying to block that shit like I’m Ben Stiller.
My father, for example, is obsessed with the idea of me getting married and growing an 18 year prison sentence in my womb. No matter how many times I tell him I’m not ready for that jazz, he still bangs on about it every time we talk.
Dad: You know I really want you to be happy and start a family. Maybe you could get married and have a nice big party. I like parties
I’m not ready to start a family yet Dad
I want grand kids!
Okay well I don’t think I’m ready for that yet
Yes but don’t you want to have a nice family and a nice big party?
Dad I’m never getting married. Ever. If you put a gun to my head and said “Get married now” I would say “No, shoot me”
Me: I’m never getting married
Then how are you going to have children?
You don’t need to be married to have children
Dad: I think it would be sssoooooo nice to have a nice big party and when you’re ready you can start a family of your own. I would make it worth your while of course…help you out financially, maybe get you a big house, nice car, buy you some car seats you knooooooowwwwww
Are you….bribing me?
Nooooooo you’ll need the extra money for the baby
I’m afraid to get married. I’m afraid to have a husband. It’s too grown up. It’s too scary. I saw that life once. And it freaked me the frank out.
When I was about 24 I was at this dinner. There was a husband and a wife there. Both of them were adults. The entire evening was spent discussing taxes, insurance costs and rising oil prices. Towards the end of the evening, the wife let drop this exciting whopper of a story.
She told us that every year, she rings up different insurance companies, getting quotes from each of them. This sometimes takes her up to four hours. When she’s done, she calls her original insurance company, telling them she’s found a cheaper deal and would they be willing to match it. If they’re not, she ditches them with the following words:
“Well if you don’t want my business I’ll have to take it elsewhere…”
Apparently, she saves herself £300 a year doing this.
Not only was I repulsed by the fucking mundanity of this anecdote, I was also struck by how out of control I suddenly felt about my own life.
I wanted to jump on the table, pull my shirt up, stick my tongue out and scream OOGGA AHHGGAA OOOGGAA GAGGAAHHAHHAAHA like a wild animal.
I felt so lost. Like I was being pushed down a road that ended with fucking tax brackets, factory shops and budget spreadsheets. I wanted to get the fuck out of there as soon as I could.
I want no part of that life. I want no part of it. I never want to be that woman. She embodies all my fears. I do not want to spend my days ringing fucking insurance companies and fighting over prices. I want to be free.
I want to go VROOOOOMMMM VROOOOOOMMMM whilst I’m driving. I want to put bogies in my belly button. I want to fart in the bath and pretend I’m in a jacuzzi. I want to stick acorns in my nose. I want to eat 100 sticks of Juicy Fruit chewing gum in one go.
*Side note – I just had my first piece of Juicy Fruit in twenty years. I’m very disappointed that in the twenty years since my mouth was last graced with the presence of a Juicy Fruit, they still haven’t managed to make the flavour last longer than 30 seconds. What the hell have they been doing all this time?
I don’t want to be an adult. Adults aren’t free.
So often I’ll be skipping down the road and singing at the top of my lungs I like big butts and I cannot lie you other brothers can’t deny
And my boyfriend will say “sshhh, walk on the pavement!” But I don’t wanna walk on the pavement. I wanna walk on the road.
Adults are so fucking boring. They always ask the same questions. They always make the same small talk. They’ll go:
“Oh what do you do..?”
“Well at the moment I’m just talking to an idiot”
What do you mean what do I do? I do a lot of things. I probably did like 50 things today. They want to know what I do for a’living. Well for a’living I mainly do a’breathing otherwise I’d be a’dying.
I don’t have time for this. Honestly. Stale small talk literally make me want to fake a hernia.
I often find myself trapped in boring conversations with adults. Especially when I’m in an elevator. One of my biggest fears is elevator small talk. Those conversations are of no nutritional value to anyone.
They always go like this:
Adults are so predictable. On Fridays it’s all like:
“Oh what are your plans for the weekend?”
“I don’t have any plans. My plans involve being where you’re not”
And on Mondays they say “how was your weekend?” Then you gotta make up stories that will make you look both cool and grown up. Cos you can’t tell the truth. You can’t say “I watched three seasons of Desperate Housewives and ate about a kilo of gouda” You gotta romanticize that shit and say “I had dinner with some friends and went to the movies”
That is no way to live.
I used to think that by the time I was 25, I would finally feel like an adult and all that extra responsibility like squeezing out babies, having husbands and making elevator small talk would come easy.
But now I’m 28 and I’m no closer to feeling grown up. In fact, I feel younger than ever. Where does this leave us? Will I ever feel like an adult? Does anybody? Do you? And if you do, was there a significant moment in your life that signified your ascent into adulthood?
dammitdarling.com 
Thanks for making me realize I’m not the only one. I’m 22 and I already have my “adult job”. I’ve been a nurse now for a year but I sometimes feel it’s too much. Decisions like what health insurance to get, what car insurance, and I even started 401K and I don’t even know what they all mean. Don’t even get me started on having a whole husband, let alone kids. When will making such decisions get easier? Sometimes I do want to get married though so someone else can hold the responsibility smh. Or should I just move back to my parents house?
Anyway, hopefully it gets easier one day. Maybe I’m like this because I started assuming responsibility for my siblings and I at a young age. Maybe one day I’ll get back to being the most responsible. I feel like someone should freeze all this adulting for a while so I can get a rest then I’ll come back all refreshed and ready to adult.
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Thank youuuuu for making that so relatable! I just laughed my butt off, holy shit.
I’m 34 and don’t ever feel like I’ll grow up. Responsibility makes me anxious, man. I like to take risks but only if they’re “fun”, uncomplicated and have a small margin for error. Sometimes I feel so guilty about this…I look at other people who are married, having kids, etc and think: “What the fuck am I DOING.” But..
It’s scaaaaawwwyyyyyyy…Yeah, I’m 5.
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Hell yeah! 34, free and feeling ya!
Why would you change it for adult handcuffs???
Thanks to the editor of this post – almost peed my pants laughing! Thank you!!!
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Loved reading this! I feel the same way. Responsibility scares me so much. I’m 24 and have gone back to university (living in the UK) just so I dont have the responsibility of a job. If I could live with my parents the rest of my life if I could. Its so strange, I can do responsible things for other people, phone the dentist for my mum but when it comes down to something for me…. nope!! My mum has never had a responsible job and the majority of my life she hasn’t worked. We have been lucky enough that my dad can provide for and look after us, and now this is what I want, to meet someone who can provide and look after me like I’m a child.
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OMG i am laughing so hard in my office until i farted ! i love you so much ! please be my friend
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This post just made my life. I am so glad I’m not the only one.
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This nearly had me in tears. Sad tears. Not that it wasn’t at all funny, it was hilarious. But this makes me feel as if I don’t have a way out. I want to make everyone proud and be what they think I should be, heck, what I think I should be. Although, also, in my heart of hearts, well and deep into my soul, I DON’T WANT A JOB. I don’t want to have someone expecting something from me when all I want to do is melt in a hot tub. Literally all I want is to feel warm. And I don’t want to do anything other than cry and stay warm. I feel like a freaking babe and I’m almost 30. I feel like this is a sickness and it makes me absolutely sad.
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Same story here,sis. I have exactly the same story in my Life. I don’t want to be adult, now 32. Fleed from my first job with in weeks, resigned from second one after struggling 2 years, went back to university and did post graduation for a 3 years break. Then did another job for 1 year and fleed again. Now for 2 years living a NEET life. Today my dad will retire and I have got an interview for a job (4th one), part of me doesn’t want to go for the interview. Dad wants me to go get the job and get married next year. He is willing to finance the marriage too. I don’t like responsibility both at home and work. I want to be free from attachment. I don’t know what to do !
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So as a guy, can I have no responsibilities too? Just wondering.
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’m 49 and I like to eat ice cream and chocolate bars for dinner and read the comics. When people offer me their disgustingly healthy food I say “no thank you I am not hungry” but secretly I just dont wanna eat it! (Im not fat by the way, 5’4″ 125lbs). In the morning and at lunch I eat at Taco Bell or something like it, avoiding my roomates healthy cooking that they want to share, and then I’m good to go until I get to my pint of ice cream or some box of cereal and milk in the evening. I also like to ride my moped scooter to work and say “no thank you” to colleagues who feel sorry for me and want to offer me rides in their boring cars where they talk about traffic and listen to the news. I’m in the 3rd year of a PhD in chemistry because I love to play around in the laboratory and make stuff, to me a fun evening is dismantling the toaster to see how it works! I also have a pet chicken and live in Hawaii, so you can see adulthood can be avoided for a looong time, hopefully forever!
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PS my colleagues are totally puzzled about the moped thing, they repeatedly ask me how much it costs for gas every week as if cheapness could be the only reason, when I tell them truthfully that I have no idea (because I never think about boring stuff like gas prices) they go away looking extremely puzzled. I’ve told them before that I ride it because its the most fun way to commute and every drive is an adventure but they cant get it.
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Guess what, I just turned 53 and I think I could have written this piece. Okay, I’m married, but that’s about the most adult thing I’ve done in my life. I have cats instead of kids, I consider work an 8 hour interruption of my day (but I’m lucky enough to work from home, so there’s that). I loathe any responsibility beyond paying the rent and other bills. My wife and I owned a house once. I had no business having a mortgage and all the other crap that goes with home ownership. As it turns out we lost it in a natural disaster, and in some ways it was a relief. It needed a roof, and a paint job and siding and other stuff I never wanted to think about. I have been told that it is a moral failing to avoid responsibility, to not want to be a parent, to not want to climb the corporate ladder and be a “success”. I guess I’m a moral failure. As hard as it is for me to admit, I’m old enough to be a grandfather, so that entitles me to tell people to F off if they try to push that garbage on me. You know what I’ve noticed…people who take on lots of responsibility get divorced, drink too much…and not for fun, and have heart attacks in their 40s.
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Amazing. Feeling like this at 26.
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I got here after literally googling “I don’t want to take responsibility for anything ever. Am I a failure?” Turns out, maybe, but if I am, I’m not the only one at least.
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Ugh. I was hoping your article would motivate me but I just laughed and realized I also sing the big butts song while goofing down the street. This article is a few years old but still fits for me. I’m 58 and still can’t grow up although I want to kind of sorta.
You have a great sense of humour which will help you enjoy the monotonous fart drone of adult life. Let me know if u figure it out.
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