He Is Grown. Recess Is Still in Session

A man can be forty-seven, own several respectable jackets and know exactly which wine he likes, and still react to ordinary adult discomfort as though somebody has cancelled recess.

This is what makes emotional immaturity so easy to miss at first. It does not always arrive wearing a backwards baseball cap and shouting from a moving vehicle. Quite often it is charming. Playful. Spontaneous. He may seem wonderfully unburdened by all the dull seriousness other adults drag around with them.

How refreshing.

Then something requires patience, responsibility or a mildly uncomfortable conversation, and suddenly you realize the school bell may never have rung for this particular gentleman.

The confusing part is that immaturity and fun are not the same thing. A grown man can play video games, ride motorcycles, tell ridiculous jokes and spend an irresponsible amount of money on some hobby nobody else understands while still being emotionally solid. None of that matters much.

Immaturity shows itself when life stops being entertaining.

Plans change. He made a mistake. You are upset with him. Something needs to be repaired rather than escaped. There is no applause available and, worse, he may have to admit that another person has a point.

Now we see the student under examination.

An emotionally mature man may not enjoy any of this, because who does, but he can remain present while discomfort is happening. The immature one often seems personally offended that adulthood has once again produced consequences.

He forgets something important, and somehow the real problem becomes your reaction to his forgetting it.

He says something hurtful, and within three minutes the conversation has wandered mysteriously toward how terrible he now feels because you are upset.

He creates the mess and then looks slightly betrayed that the mess has chosen to remain visible.

It is quite a talent.

This is also how a relationship can slowly acquire a strange classroom arrangement. You begin reminding, anticipating, smoothing, organizing and translating. You know which conversation must wait until he is in a good mood. You remember what he promised because apparently somebody has to. You start approaching ordinary problems with the cautious preparation of a teacher taking twenty-eight children to an aquarium.

Nobody announces this change of roles. It simply happens.

And because competent women are terribly good at competence, the arrangement can work for quite a while. Things get handled. Appointments happen. Difficult conversations eventually occur because you initiate them. The relationship continues moving because you quietly keep all four wheels attached.

From the outside, everything may look perfectly adult.

Inside, one person has accidentally become homeroom teacher.

The truly exhausting part is not doing more. It is having another adult behave as though your doing more happened naturally, like rainfall.

Of course you remembered.

Of course you sorted it out.

Of course you brought up the problem, found the words, kept the conversation calm and returned three days later when he announced that he “didn’t want drama.”

Recess remains very popular.

Immaturity also has an interesting relationship with apology. Some men apologize beautifully. Frequently, even. There can be great sincerity in the moment, touching remorse, promises of improvement and an expression suggesting that an important moral transformation has just occurred.

Then the same thing happens again.

At some point, “I’m sorry” stops sounding like repair and starts sounding like the little bell that ends detention.

The problem is not that an immature person cannot understand that you are unhappy. He often understands that perfectly well. What he struggles with is staying inside the discomfort long enough to understand his part in creating it. Regret is easier when it means, Please stop being upset with me. Reflection asks rather more.

And that is perhaps the least cute thing about the man who never quite graduated: he can mistake consequences for persecution.

A boundary feels controlling.

A request feels demanding.

A difficult conversation feels like “drama.”

Responsibility has somehow developed a personal vendetta against him.

There is often something oddly youthful about his relationship with freedom too. He wants freedom in the way teenagers sometimes imagine it: nobody telling him what to do, nobody questioning his choices, nobody expecting explanations. Lovely arrangement, except adult freedom usually arrives holding hands with responsibility.

He would prefer they stop seeing each other.

What initially looked wonderfully carefree can therefore become strangely expensive for the person beside him. His spontaneity is delightful until you are the one absorbing the disruption. His relaxed attitude is charming until something genuinely needs doing. His refusal to “take life too seriously” sounds attractive until you realize he may also refuse to take you seriously whenever your feelings inconvenience him.

That is when the schoolboy charm starts losing some shine.

Because emotional adulthood is not about becoming solemn, sensible and beige. Thank God. It is simply the ability to remain a whole person when life is not giving you exactly what you want.

You can still be silly.

You can still be impulsive.

You can still laugh at inappropriate things occasionally and eat cereal for dinner.

You just cannot keep handing another adult your unfinished homework and calling yourself easygoing.

Eventually, the relationship itself becomes the report card.

Not because anyone needs to grade him, but because life keeps setting the same little tests: Can he be counted on? Can he hear something unpleasant without collapsing into defensiveness? Can he repair what he damages? Can he care about another person even when caring requires effort rather than charm?

Some men grow beautifully into those questions.

Others apparently remain enrolled indefinitely.

The strange thing is that they may look completely grown from across the room.

Then the bell rings.

And off they go to recess.