Do you have friends who still talk about how great they were,looked, or how popular they were back 30, 40 ,or 50 years ago and still haven’t got past it.
Do you have friends who still talk about how great they were,looked, or how popular they were back 30, 40 ,or 50 years ago and still haven’t got past it.
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No, I didn’t hang with the beautiful people so I don’t know if they are still reliving their glory days
All my old friends are dead or not in contact.
No, I wouldn’t be friends with anyone like that.
I had a friend in hs who I’ve caught up with a few times over the years and friended on social media. All she can talk about is things that happened in hs and college and people she knew then. It’s like her life basically stopped after that point. I don’t remember those people or the events she describes so I pretty much stopped talking to her
And your problem with that is what, exactly? Does this affect you somehow?
Is your soul so dead there never been a time when you felt like crying, but started laughing thinking ’bout Glory Days?
I dont know but at least in my country because of recession and austerity it is pretty common to say that was much better 20 years ago. We had work, more money, we could afford a new car things like that! So before judging all same as a blanket statement let’s say that it is more about individual cases. I got a feeling that this post is about bashing this people and it clashes with my sense of empathy. Even if somebody does this out of narcissism, it would be of the least malefic narcissistic things that have encounter in my life
Yes!! Sometimes my best buddy and I, longtime friends since our high school football days in the late ‘60s reminisce about our glory days sacking and knocking opposing quarterbacks dizzy, but unlike him I can still fit into my high school jacket.
Good song btw 🎶
Story telling is crucial for development of relationships. It’s the basis of education. Ever have a teacher just write on the board or assign something with no explanation or talking?
Most of the cool kids were, in retrospect, not that interesting. I don’t even recall their names.
I was thinking about one kinda geeky guy I knew in HS (you know, debate, quiz team, all that). Looked him up and found out he became a professor at a mid sized university with student reviews saying what a caring guy he was.
That made me happy. I dont need the glory days folks.
There is nothing worse than the peaked in highschool/college crowd.
I have a couple of family members who never got past being the oldest sibling and still think its their job to tell their adult siblings what to do.
No, none like that at all.
Uncle Rico?
No, I don’t have friends like that.
I mean, I kind of am. I was the SHIT in the 80’s.
Where do you personally draw your line between reminiscing about things that have brought you joy and your phrase “living in the past”?
My friends and family will often happily discuss things we’ve experienced that we’re fun or special, but we’re not living in that world. We’re just looking back at it, but with no delusion that it still exists or could be re-created.
People who peaked in High School suffer from the “Al Bundy Syndrome”. I’m grateful for not being one of these people & would never hang out with anybody like that.
My cousin’s ex-husband and the father of her two adult children is like that. He was an Eagle Scout who later became a drifter. lmao I’ve never met him, but my Dad knew him and was very unimpressed.
My last day in high school was my last day. Same for college. I loathe (but stupidly still attend) yearly reunions from schools that I taught at; conversations are always about their past teaching experiences Most have been retired for 10+ years.
I guess it is comforting looking back, rather than looking forward.
Not at all, I’m Australian and we don’t play these stupid self appreciating ” I’m better than you” type caste/social ranking games.
We have something called the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”, whichever means that we are humble and respect people from all backgrounds no matter what their “social standings” that seem to be so important in the USA.
Many people have had a life of different successes, but nobody ever mentions it, and even if someone finds out and brings up the topic, it’s always downplayed and ignored.
Yep — a former in-law. A Harvard grad and still hasn’t gotten over herself 45 years later. All she ever talked about were the minor celebrities she’s known or worked with, and she’s passed that unpleasant tendency on to her children.
Now she and her kids are supported by her parents, because I guess a Harvard degree doesn’t guarantee you’re smart enough to hold a job.
I’ve never known anyone who was less comfortable in their own skin. Thank goodness she’s now an ex, and we don’t have to hear from her any longer.
You know, I had this friend who was a great baseball player back in high school. He could throw that streak ball by you – make you look like a fool, boy. I saw him the other night at this road stop bar, he was walking in and I was walking out. We went back inside and had a few drinks, but all he kept talking about were his glory days
The most popular kids in my high school still post pictures of themselves and their friends in high school… and still talk about all the fun they had. It’s been nearly 40 years since high school so they seem a little stuck in the past.
No, those people were slowly eliminated, some sooner than others.
I have a friend from the age of 12 and we’re now 64 who still talks about things I can’t even remember. I think I offended him when I asked him “have he made any new memories since that time that we can talk about. I don’t even know what you do for a living right now”.
Last weekend I went to the 45th anniversarry celebration for a college group I was active in 35 years ago. It was great to see old friends and make some new ones and I really enjoyed seeing the people who were still actively into it having fun with it like I did all those years ago. It’s fun to reminisce about the past but times change and so do our interests for many of us.
I’m at the age where I don’t look so great with my shirt off anymore and I just laugh about it. I still have my hair, I enjoy my life even with the aches and pains. I had a lot of angst when I was younger and that seems to be gone now.
Uncle Rico
I have a friend in his 50s still hustling and acting like he did in his 20s. Gets arrested every now and again, posts Peaky Blinders and Joker memes about loyalty and dangerous quiet men. He always has things for sale.
No. I know no one who does this.
Yes, but what’s even more sad is that he just can’t seem to realize it. He became an alcoholic during the disintegration of his first marriage, and even though he claims he’s happy with his second wife, he still drinks to forget. He’s constantly changing companies every other year or so with the excuse that “this is just how my industry is”. I sincerely love the guy and we’ve been like family for over thirty years, but his refusal to acknowledge his issues and seek help for them have driven a wedge between us and I can no longer stand him. He recently ruined a joint birthday dinner(that he wasn’t even supposed to be invited to) because he got genuinely enraged when he found out that we didn’t come visit him while we were on our way to another state during a trip that didn’t involve him in any way whatsoever. The closest we got to his house would still have been over an hour away, and he couldn’t understand why his rage wasn’t reasonable or sane.
You just described every high school reunion.
An ex-bf was like that, about his glory days in high school. He was in his late 40’s at the time.
I dumped them all.
Have a cousin who walks the sideline of every high school game with the team. No kid on the team in 25 years . Ever. Not 1. Small town. He was a big deal. Yells out unsolicited advice. Never thought he’d be that guy.
so many!! i’d even say most people i grew up with are stuck in the past. even some newer friends i’ve made that are the same age. They straight up reject new ways of thinking, new music, and younger people in general. They’re angry at the world and bitter about being old. It’s such a shame because i view my 50s as the beginning of the second half of my life and i am
enjoying being “old”! It’s so pointless to fight time.
Exactly the reason I don’t follow my high school or city Facebook pages.
Reading this thread makes me really appreciate that I was a fat lazy kid. At 62 I’m in better shape than 90% of the people I used to admire in school.
Al Bundy or Doug Heffernan would qualify. I realize they’re fictional characters, but they clearly illustrate the behavior you’ve identified.
I wasn’t ever popular but I’m 44 and still wearing clothes I had in middle school. I’m not changing things that don’t need replacing.
I have a family member who has made this all of her current life.
She was at her peak in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Nothing in conversation with her stops her from getting to this point and re-telling the stories we have all heard a million times. And she’s been doing it since her 40’s.
My high school classmates from over 60 years ago still meet once a month over coffee to chat. They also hold potlucks once a year. 25 to 40 out of a class of 225 show up. I live too far away to join the chats but wish them well.
Some of my previous working colleagues. Some just can’t move forward. Thinking they still young. Forever last time…
My parents were part of that crowd.
They are both still quite narcissistic. My mom comments on peoples’ appearances all the time.
My mom has a friend who re-lives her h.s. Glory days to the point that her daughter did home school for high school- i think because it was too much to live up to.
I don’t understand why people prioritize being popular.
I was friends with people from several groups, and I focused on getting a scholarship to get into a good university and save my money and live frugally to open up as many opportunities for myself as I could.
My life has been beyond my wildest dreams and I’m only middle-aged.
I never had friends like that. Those I’m still in touch with are living new glory days with each passing year, aside from health challenges.
No, none in my circle of friends and family members. We occasionally reminisce happily about proms and sports accomplishments, usually laughing at how we were at the time, but there’s no sense of being “stuck” back in time. I knew an older gentleman when I was in my 20s who was by then in his 60s, who was truly stuck back in his WWII days.He had worked on aircraft carriers in the Pacific in some kind of support role for airplane mechanics and he liked to pull a picture of his favorite plane and crew out of his wallet and show it to people. I always felt bad for him that he’d never felt such enthusiasm for anything else in the following 35 years, but I was young then and didn’t grasp the hugeness of his experiences until I became more mature myself. He was a melancholy alcoholic and has been dead for decades now but I still think about him and wish the rest of his life had gone better for him.
The previous generation created many meaningful memories to share, while the new generation may have little to reminisce about in the future.
I could throw a football a quarter mile in ‘82.
i got so hammered the third night of AquaFest in 1985.
Most of mine don’t. Some of the oldest ones will tell stories when asked, similar to what happens with this sub. But I do know a couple or so, not too ‘old’, who are trying to relive their younger years via social media. because they had originally been late bloomers.
I mean, some people bring expertise to the table. Like, “before I was retired, I worked in Air Force personnel. There are some stories I could tell you!” I think is acceptable. But repeating the winning game from high school were you score two of the touchdowns in Homecoming in 1971 would be a bit sad. Now that i think about it, it’s also entirely on how you define yourself to others. Generally, those who don’t have much of a life or adventure are going to tell the same things over and over.
As a kid, one of my friends used to groan about whenever one of his aunts came over, she always wanted to show a slideshow of that time her and her husband went to Ireland in 1975. She brought her own carousel tray (slide projectors used to have this ring cartridge where slides were stored) and everything. His parents always allowed this because “she’s old and lonely, never really has anyone to talk to.” To a twelve year old’s attention span, though, that must have been excruciating.