Sunday, June 29, 2014

Children of the 90s



Friday night, Eric and I enjoyed a classy date night out. We dined at Moes.

It's just like Chipotle, except way better and I had a free birthday entrĂ©e coupon. The only and only time I ate at  Moes was after my first 50k, so it's possible that I've been building it up in my mind for 3 years. But they give you free chips with your meal AND they have a salsa bar.


Eric and I returned to the establishment where we met 8 years ago. He worked there as a bouncer when I sucked him in with my good looks, wit, and charm. One of his fellow bouncers was in town for the weekend, so we had happy hour with him and his wife.

2006

2014
Funny how my face looks so much fatter in the old picture, but a first year teacher survival diet of cheap vodka, M&Ms, and tears will do that to you.
 
If you are a fellow child of the 90s (born in the 80s, obviously, but enjoyed most of my memorable childhood in the 90s), like me, and grew up in the heyday of TGIF, you might be shocked that I agreed to go out this past Friday, during such a momentous TV occasion.



But obviously I'd taken that into consideration and my friends and I had made viewing arrangements months ago. It aired at 9pm, clearly too late, so we DVD'd it and watched Saturday afternoon, because that's what you do in your 30s, at least if you have/are creating children.

Let's return to the children of the 90s thing, because I have a little "kids today" rant I'd like to discuss.



Friday night at the bar, there were two beautiful young women, probably in their early 20s sitting at the next table. They spent pretty much the entire "night" (we left at 9, so I can't comment on their activities after that) taking selfies, beautifying their selfies, posting selfies, and just generally on their phones. At one point, one girl went to the bathroom and the other girl started browsing Tinder.

Eric and most of my friends didn't know what Tinder was, as they shouldn't at our age, so I'll explain. You put in your distance radius, it shows you pictures of single people of the gender of your choice in that radius, and you swipe the people either right or left to show if you think they are attractive or not (modern day hotornot.com). If you've both swiped each other the same way, you message each other and go hook up, at least that's how I understand it.

Ok, so this girl is in a bar, and on an online dating site. Do you see the problem here? JUST GO TALK TO A REAL LIVE MAN IN THE SAME ROOM AS YOU.

Back in 2006, when I was in my early 20s, my friends and I rolled into bars with just our flip phones and maybe a digital camera if it was a special occasion. We had to make our own fun by actually interacting with people. The word "selfie" didn't even exist. I don't have any pictures from the night I met Eric, so nowadays people probably wouldn't even believe it happened. The picture I posted is from about 2 months later, and it's one of the few pictures I have of our early dating years. We had to just use our memories to remember stuff. Except that wasn't a problem, because we were actually doing fun stuff and not just taking selfies and finding the perfect filter to post them to Instagram all night. /endrant

The next morning I woke up early to meet my BFF Casi for Waterfront bootcamp. Seriously, move here, this city is amazing. Free exercise classes outside with a gorgeous view every weekend all summer long. This one was led by a very easy on the eyes young man.

We started out with jump roping for 2 minutes. Except not really, because that's actually impossible. Try jump roping for 15 seconds as an adult, and I guarantee you'll be exhausted in about 8 seconds unless you're training for an ironman or something. Then we did all sorts of crazy exercises with bands and ladders and kickboxing and pushups and other hard stuff on the ground. I think my hands and forearms are the most sore.

Then we went to the Fell's Point farmers market.


I got these teeny tiny little baby mini strawberries, called Alpine strawberries. They taste nothing like strawberries but they are so good. Find a farmers market and try them asap.


Also, bacon chocolate corn bread. I haven't tried it yet because I'm waiting to surprise Eric with it. But obviously that can't be bad.

Everything should be made with bacon and chocolate
Then we went back to Casi's house to meet up with our third half and watch Girl Meets World. Casi brought back giant bagels from her recent trip to NYC, so life was pretty much perfect. Except that GMW was highly disappointing, not funny, and contained minimal amounts of Cory and Topanga.
 
  
I took a sexy picture for my Tinder profile. One on the outside, one on the inside. Should attract all the buff young men.


The one I'm holding isn't mine, but look how sweet and precious!


What's your "kids these days" rant? (Side note -  I know it's not all people in their early 20s, I know plenty of exceptions to the rule.) Is anyone else as OVER the selfies as I am?
 
Anyone else watch Girl Meets World and want to weigh in?


9 comments:

  1. I think people look silly when taking selfies at a bar, concert, museum, etc. And Tinder sounds questionable at best to me. But I'm not completely against using technology for dating purposes since my boyfriend and I met on OK Cupid over 3 years ago! I'm way too shy to talk to strangers in a bar but I have no problem messaging someone on a dating site to ask about the cupcake they're eating in their profile picture (true story).

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    1. Oh I'm totally for online dating, but I just feel like if you are actually out at a bar with a friend, maybe that's not the time to work on it.

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  2. I saw people taking selfies with iPads at the 9/11 memorial...

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  3. Ugh, you should see the mid-20s crowd at the ballpark. They sit down 30 minutes after the game starts and take a bunch of pictures of the fields, themselves, and each other. After they leave for an hour to get beer, they come back and take more selfies with their beer. It was really noticeable because I ended up in the background of a lot of pictures and because they were moving around so much to take pictures that they blocked my view a lot. Is that really what the ballpark experience is like for these people? Jeez.

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  4. I can't believe I missed the premiere of GMW! Although I'm disappointed to hear that it wasn't very good. Since I'm usually too tired/old to go out on Friday night, maybe I'll catch it one of these days.

    It turns out I don't spend too much time around kids in their teens/early 20s, but if I did I'm sure I'd have something to complain about :)

    -Rachel

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  5. I had never heard of Tinder before today. How out of touch am i?

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  6. I'm pretty much over people and their smart phones in general. Put it down! We go out to dinner or to the zoo etc...and it's all these people taking pictures, posting pictures etc. How about actually enjoying the experience you are having??

    Also, the news today was showing a story about FB and how everyone is up in arms about their new "experiment." Um, FB is totally voluntary. If you don't like how they use your information, just get off the free and voluntary website.

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  7. I think I have been over selfies and the constant desire to be glued to your phone for awhile now. I don't think younger people can go anywhere without taking a selfie, posting about it on social media, or calling/texting someone to tell them about it.

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  8. Tinder sounds incredibly creepy. Ew. My "kids these days" rant: Supervise a high school dance sometime (no, don't. It's awful). One third of the kids are doing gross things loosely defined as dancing. The other two thirds are on the sidelines, on their phones. Why get dressed up and pay for the dance if you are going to do something you could do at home in your PJs?

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.