Why stop being awkward just because your teen years are up? Keep it going. Larry David made a career out of it.

And somehow being older they will gain ultimate prowess?

six is made to be too much of a big deal when it really isn't.

Still am a teen and i dont see me as awkward. Of course when i hit my 30s or 40s im going to see myself as strange lol.

Why is not having a cell phone stupid? I don't have one either. I see no point in having one. People are too attached to their cell phones, I see it all the time. Idiots driving and talking or texting, people checking out in stores too occupied with chatting or checking texts to acknowledge the cashier, people in restaurants too busy texting or talking to say two words to the person their sitting with. If all cell phones went away I would have no problem with it.

I've no desire for a cell, nor any plans on ever getting one.

I agree. I do have one but use it rarely for emergencies when I go to town. I find the cell phone has caused folks to refrain from talking to strangers and thus limited the number of new experiences we have in life. Used to when waiting in line at the grocery or waiting on a plane at the airport, strangers struck up conversations and some even became friends or contacts for some aspect of our career. Now, people chat it up on a cell phone limiting their experience to who they already know. Dinner dates are interrupted by a phone call, people are able to have contact with you while you go fishing or camping. That really isn't my idea of "getting away". I miss those times a bit. But part of being a teen today is not having ever known those times when we dealt with emergencies, dinner dates, driving, waiting and striking up conversations with strangers. They have a cell phone and it changed life in many ways.

Nothing stupid about keeping life simple and hanging onto th solitude and peace we knew pre-cellphone days. Quite admirable if you ask me.

People don't seem to understand that cell phones aren't the ultimate evil. It is actually possible to have a cell phone without becoming one of those idiots texting while driving. Cell phones are a tool to make your life easier and safer. It's a way to always be able to contact someone if you need to, whether that be family, friends or the police. Just because you have a cell phone doesn't mean you become a borg always chatting on your phone.

Imo, not having a cell phone just because you don't want one is fine. But what annoys me is the people who refuse to get a cell phone because they think they're only for idiots or people who don't want to socialize, or think they're "too good" to use one.

this

You're quite right. I grew up in the age before cell's came out en-mass. As a teen no one had cells as they were those huge clunky bricks only for the rich. People seemed to engage each other a lot more back then. These days no one really ever seems to do what you mentioned, talking to others while waiting in line. A lady in front of me did actually turn around and start talking to me last week while waiting in the grocery checkout line. Prior to her, that hadn't occurred in ages and ages.

I go out for Friday night supper with my Mom, and there's always one or two couples sitting at their table with one or both glued to the cell. We always comment on it. When I run to the quick mart for smokes there's always someone with a blue tooth ear thingie chatting away, ignoring anyone else around them, and I almost was rammed in a car park by a woman in a suv talking on her phone. It's a rampant epidemic. My Mom's co-worker had to cancel her teen daughter's cell after getting a bill where the girl had texted something like 8000 messages in one month to her friends.

If I need to call home when I'm out I use a pay phone. It's how it was back then. Friends didn't need to constantly be in contact with each other 24-7 anywhere. If there's an emergency you used a pay phone or waited to get home to make a call. Even if you had a blown tire, you walked to the closest home or gas station to call for help. Now it's all instant, god forbid having to get out and walk three blocks or half a mile to get to a phone.

I know I sound ancient, but 33 here and I can't believe how dependant people are these days on having instant everything. If I did ever decide to get one, I'd be kicked out of the store for asking for a phone that only makes calls....lol. Text. gaming, internet, photos, camera's, video recorders, and projectors are not what I want in a phone.

I'm still in the midst' of my teens, but there kinda boring and dull. I wish people in high school were more mature, it makes it hard to find a girl who isn't a crack head.

:facepalm:

Just turned 17, not much awkwardness so far. Mostly they've followed a familiar pattern.

I am still 16, and while I would not describe my existence as being in any way awkward, I would describe it as dull and boring. Someone as taciturn as me does not really experience much excitement in high school, I suppose.



I agree with this statement completely.

I suppose I'm ending my teen years as I turned 18, but they were okay I guess. Generally they weren't bad, but they weren't super awesome either.

Way to mention all the negatives and omitting all the advantages of having a mobile.

Emergency calls. Planning a night out. Getting an answer quick. Getting texted by someone (in my case, usually my mother) to buy some groceries on the way home. Reminders. Quick photos of certain situations which bring about great memories in the future. Cheap and fast communication.

I don't know what I'd do without my mobile. I'd probably feel naked. I don't even use much credit a month - at most 10EUR.

I didn't mention any advantages because I see none at all in owning a cell.

Odd that people are arguing over cell phones.

The only reasonable answer as to if they are good or bad is completely dependent on who owns the phone. :shrug:

To hate them simply because of the actions of others is equally unreasonable as to say there is no sense in not owning one without knowing who you are addressing personally.

Fair enough. I use it all the time cause I'm a BUSY MAN. AND I'VE GOT FRIENDS. :rolleyes:

Maybe it's just where I live (Australia FTW ) but I've struck up plenty of conversations with strangers, and vice versa, and I'm still a teenager :shrug:

Oh, and :rofl: at the above post.

I'm only fifteen, so i really can't say, still in puberty you know.

well I dont know yet i'm 13 can't really say much when your that far into your teens

Ewww... friends.

I have enough people hanging on the bell all day. If I had a cell phone how would I get peace and quiet? People could bother me everywhere. It's like having a license to get pissed off. Me being a calm and mellow kind of person... generally... I like to be contacted during certain times. Or if I need to I will do the contacting. Every other svcker had a cell phone to be bothered after all. I mean if everyone else has a cell phone, why do I need one? I get the advantages of being able to call them on my terms, and be called on my terms. Most emergencies are exactly that, events in which you are in extreme danger. I doubt having a phone in a crisis would be handy. Maybe AFTER said crisis. Although that too is debatable.

at this point miserably, everything's falling apart and I feel like an ass (still have a year and a half to go)

the one thing it seems I have over others in my school though is that many seem to think that these issues are matters of life and death, as awkward, and sad as they are, they're still minor issues compared to hardships of life.

a year ago there was a thread about what you did in College. One of the posts I read said "got on with my life and realized that in the grand scheme of things High School meant nothing"

when I read that I realized that whatever I'm feeling now is not perpetual and that years from now it'll all be a faded memory. I keep telling myself that a lot

thank you to the guy who posted that, forgot your name

Yeah, my teen years were pretty frakking awkward. I'm 30 now, so all that's in the past at least, and my memory of that time isn't as vivid as it used to be; but I still remember having more angst than I rightly knew what to do with. I remember just obsessing over this one girl in class for all of my highschool career, and couldn't work up enough courage to even talk to her until late in my senior year I wrote her a really lame... "love letter," I guess you'd call it.

Of course, by then I'd missed my window and as luck would have it she'd started dating some other guy only a week earlier. So I guess you could say I didn't do a whole lot of dating in my teen years. Looking back, if I'd been a little more confident, we could have already been broken up by the time I was a sophomore, even (it even turned out that she'd tried giving me some signals at one point, but then gave up because I couldn't get it through my head that something like that could even possible.)

It seemed to me like by the time I really got the hang of being a teenager, I was turning 20 and moving onto the next stage of my life - college and all the craziness that ensues from trying to figure out how to be an advlt (which is something I have a feeling I might finally get the hang of at some point - probably right before I start going senile...)

Very nice. Freedom of the mind is true freedom.

My teen years were very good to me actually. I was very popular, had a LOT of friends, and hung out with people over their houses and went to parties and such all through high school/beginning of middle school. In my younger years before that, 13 to about 15 I'd say, I was still pretty popular and had a lot of friends. :shrug:

I have spent the day thinking about my teen years due to the fact that I just got back in touch with a friend who I basically grew up with through that time of life. At the time I thought life was horrible. My parents too strict, me with no good idea of how I would escape the prision I was in (mephorical prision), not sure anyone would really love me just for me. Always trying hard to be more than I was, wishing I was better, had more, could do more. I was not a very confident person. But yet I was the best pretender in the world. I pretended I had my "stuff" together. I portrayed a confident gal with all her ducks in a row who knew more, much more than my parents and a dream of changing the world.

Now I look back at all I was, insecurites and all. with such fond memories and the problems I had now seem so small and just pebbles in the walkway of my journey. I had fun but I never let go of my goals and tried to have fun no matter what I did. Fun volunteering, fun working, fun dancing, fun shopping, fun with friends and family.

So the awkward of those years now seems like something normal we all go through and grow with. I think we are all awkward for different reasons at different times through life. I think we all went to different schools together at different times and it's all the same when it really gets down toit.