My dad is “Mr. <our surname>” and he thought of his dad as the same, but both he and I have courted and expected the same title in various places and if you’re called that name enough times, you can kind of get used to it.
But when a small child almost runs into you and their mother chastises them with “Careful! You almost ran into that man!” and “that man” is you. Oh boy. And another time “Why does that man look so sad?”. As you might imagine, I was not having a particularly good time before that small child said that.
I used to object to it because I was just “a guy.” It felt so unnatural because I still felt like a just-stopped-being-a-teenager adult. I defended calling women “chicks” for the same reason because, to 22 yo me, “men” and “women” were middle-aged. Fortunately, I learned not to keep doing that.
But yeah, this comic is pretty easy to identify with.
The one that got me was being called “that man”.
My dad is “Mr. <our surname>” and he thought of his dad as the same, but both he and I have courted and expected the same title in various places and if you’re called that name enough times, you can kind of get used to it.
But when a small child almost runs into you and their mother chastises them with “Careful! You almost ran into that man!” and “that man” is you. Oh boy. And another time “Why does that man look so sad?”. As you might imagine, I was not having a particularly good time before that small child said that.
But I suppose it wasn’t “that old man”…
Exact same feeling when a child almost ran into me and her mom said “watch out for that lady” when I’d have expected to be referred to as “that girl”.
I’m 30 now but the moment still stuck with me as a memory about the transition to adulthood .
Yet.
I used to object to it because I was just “a guy.” It felt so unnatural because I still felt like a just-stopped-being-a-teenager adult. I defended calling women “chicks” for the same reason because, to 22 yo me, “men” and “women” were middle-aged. Fortunately, I learned not to keep doing that.
But yeah, this comic is pretty easy to identify with.