I've always been better at having friends and getting along with people much older or younger than myself.
I'm not really sure why. I guess that there is a lot less pressure to conform, to behave in an age-appropriate manner, to be what your peers consider "normal".
Or maybe there is more to it than that?
Young kids seem to understand that I am not like "other adults", that I cannot get genuinely angry with them no matter how hard they try to wind me up, that I am one of the few adults who genuinely remembers what it was like to be a young child and who remembers pretty much exactly how I thought and how I saw the world. I remember as a young adult being at parties and the kids would constantly be tugging at my arms trying to get me to come and play with them. For the record, my least favourite kids' game is "dollies".
By the time I was in my early 40s and in a more senior role at work I was mentoring and distributing work to a bunch of very clever young adults, male and female, and found that I got along really well with them. That they seemed to look at me as a really cool and non-threatening guy.
I'm not really sure why. I guess that there is a lot less pressure to conform, to behave in an age-appropriate manner, to be what your peers consider "normal".
Or maybe there is more to it than that?
Young kids seem to understand that I am not like "other adults", that I cannot get genuinely angry with them no matter how hard they try to wind me up, that I am one of the few adults who genuinely remembers what it was like to be a young child and who remembers pretty much exactly how I thought and how I saw the world. I remember as a young adult being at parties and the kids would constantly be tugging at my arms trying to get me to come and play with them. For the record, my least favourite kids' game is "dollies".
By the time I was in my early 40s and in a more senior role at work I was mentoring and distributing work to a bunch of very clever young adults, male and female, and found that I got along really well with them. That they seemed to look at me as a really cool and non-threatening guy.