MovieChat Forums > Can't Hardly Wait (1998) Discussion > OT: I need some help. (No, really.)

OT: I need some help. (No, really.)

posted 14 years ago by zeeboe82
5 replies | jump to latest

I am sure I am just begging to be mocked and flamed, but whatever. I need to rant. This will be long so please don't post just to tell me that this post is too long. :-)

The 1998 teen film "Can't Hardly Wait" changed my life or at least my perspective of high school. You see, I was 16 at the time I saw it and was a very anti-social shy and fat nerdy kid who was just miserable all the time, but after seeing "Can't Hardly Wait", I realized how not only short high school is but how precious it is too and that I should enjoy it while I can and I like to think I did, but sadly, I never did get that Hollywood ending I was hoping for. The ending was just sad and boring.

I'm 27 now and a manchild who acts, lives and thinks like a teenager. I didn't really become one until I was 23 but I'm not just any manchild. I'm a manchild who let life pass him by as a kid and teen and now I'm trying to fix past mistakes. I do that by dating older teenage girls (that are legal. I promise. They're 18 and 19.) and by dating girls I knew in high school. The older teen girl thing is not cause I'm some pedophile but more just confused with what year it is sometimes I think. I mean, I look at some of these girls birth dates and I'm actually shocked by them sometimes, but then I realize....."Ohhhhhh, it's 2010. Not 2001."

Now because I never dated in high school and because I was rejected often, it's like I became emotionally stuck at that age when it all started. Most women my age realize I am not mature enough to date them and even I admit, I find them boring.

I e-mailed this girl I had a major crush on back in school. We've been online friends for a long time now and I just told her how I felt back then and all is cool...I mean, she's married and about to have a kid, but I did that because I am trying to move on in my life and let my teen years go and really try to become an adult and finally let go of the past.

"Can't Hardly Wait".....man, I watched that movie again recently for the first time in a long time and it brought back so many old feelings and now I am trying to figure out a way to move on.

So I am thinking if I can finally have that type of party and do all that stuff and end my teen years the hollywood way and the way it should have been ended....maybe I can move on. But.....I need my old classmates. :-) I can't do it without them.

I can't go to some party with strangers. It has to be either with actual teenagers......(but come to think of it, even that would suck cause I'd feel out of place)..... or it has to be people from my day. It has to be a recreation.....not just a reunion, but an actual remake and it has to be like a house party.

Watching too many teen movies growing up made it seem like it was better then what it was and it's like until I can finally live that teen movie thing, my mind will be stuck forever. I think that's one of the reasons why I am so into partying, yet I rarely do it and I seem to do it, not for just the fun of it, but because I'm looking for that party I saw in the movies.

A few days ago, I was walking to work...a job I've had since senior year wearing an old high school shirt and listening to an old CD I've had since 1999. That wasn't done on purpose man! Was not planned. It just happened.

I mean, my whole thing with this is just wanting to FINALLY get it out of my system. I mean, I'm living backwards.....I can't change the channel from yesterday....

I mean, I realize I am not the first or the last person who looks like he has fallen out of a time machine. At different bars and clubs I've gone to, I see these older men that wear these outdated styles of clothing and say pick-up lines to girls young enough to be their daughters and the pick-up lines are probably older then the girls too. The thing is, I honestly rather not be like that one day, although I probably will be at the rate I am going. I don't want to be some 40-year old fat guy flirting with 19-year old girls at the local mall, ya know?

So what do I do? I was thinking of either seeing a head doctor or trying to find some reality show producer and pitch this idea to him and maybe they could somehow recreate this for me.

......So.....what do you guys think? I mean, do I need to see help or should I try to make this dream real? I am guessing seeking help will be the most popular response, if there even is any responses other then the flames. But if any smart people can offer their advice, I'd welcome it.

What's messed up is I wasn't even popular in school. I hung out mostly with the freaks and geeks and special ed kids. So why on earth would I put high school/teen years on such a high pedestal? I don't get it. I am thinking I believe that teens enjoy life the most and it's like until I can live that, I am forever going to try and be a teen in my mind.

[–] Grimm-Grimm 14 years ago

I read everything you wrote (pretty proud of myself there.)

I don't think what your experiencing is much of out the norm in American society today. I'm 31 and a kid at heart. I don't have any kids but I do have a 7yrs old niece and kids love me. I'm really good with kids because I'm a big kid myself.

I was really a dumb slow kid in school. Really bad. So much that teachers suspended me for being on drugs, even though I was one of the minor few that did not do illegal drugs. But after highschool I started to do what I call, "learning through unlearning" which means I unlearn my bad habits and learn everthing I missed. I started to read books people often mention. I finally knew who was J.R. Tolkien and Lewis Carol. So as you can easily see I am late growing up in life. I had serious depression, undiagnosed Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue disored, and I had bad teachers.

Where I differe a bit is that I hung around with mostly people older then me and I prefer mature older women to younger. But I'm open minded and as long as she is a good person I will be open to it. Now I have 2 other friends though, who are about 36yrs old. They absolutely refuse to go out with any woman their age. One has a girlfriend who is 24 and the other something similar. One os a DJ and has different girls around all the time it's rediculous. Always at least 10 years younger then him.

Patty Stanger "the Millionaire Matchmaker" claims that it's because women's chances of having a healthy baby, begin to decline at 25. Then at 30 the chances for birth defects gets higher. At 35 and 40 there is a much higher probability of a baby coming out with health problems.

But I don't know. People like you, me, my friend, and Michael Jackson, were all people who grew up with a strict upbringing and didn't get as much chance as the other kids to be kids. My father had me working with him all the time I hated it. All the kids would be out playing. He only paid me $5 a day which sometimes ran 14 hours! I saved up $50 for a new skateboard deck as I was the only kid around being made fun of still riding a crap toy flea market skateboard. I finally got to buy a real pro deck and friends helped pitch in for wheels and parts. Well soon as my dad found out. He literally grabbed me, tossed me in the truck. Dragged me into the store, gave the owner the whole skateboard and told him never to allow me in the store again! All my friends saw it. It was terrifying and embarrassing!

So anyway, that's enough for now. Keep your head up. Maybe get a therapist as mine helps me plan out goals in life and it's good to talk out your problems. Everyone should have a therapist. But don't worry your not so weird.

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[–] zeeboe82 14 years ago

Thank you for the advice. I am doing a little better. You know when I was a pre-teen and early teenager, I wanted my childhood back. lol. It was not until I saw "Can't Hardly Wait" at age 16 that I got my head on straight.

I have enjoyed my twenties and taken advantage of it and hope to enjoy these final three years, but you know....I see 30-something year old's acting like they are in their twenties....kinda like how some twenty-something year old's act like teenagers. lol. Maybe I'll grow up a little when I'm in my 40's. :)

Just for the record: I was only joking about partying with teenagers. I'll probably try to have a party with people I went to high school with at some point.

Anyhow, I rather not get into the details at this point and time but I went out and fixed this little problem and I feel a lot better now.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] phantom_pixie 12 years ago

Hey, the only thing I can say is that real lift isn't like the movies.
In highschool I wasn't the most popular, but I was pretty popular. I can't for the life of me figure out how, since I'm a geek. I luv videogames, anime and sci-fi. (But then, I'm female. And guys don't mind us being weird as long as we don't end up looking like jabba) Never the less i've been to a few parties/gathering/festivities like the one this film try to portay, and it's not that fun. You have to be drunk out of your mind to find it fun, and then you can't remember much of it anyway. At the end of high school I was so sick of it that I turned in to a "Denise" rather than an "Amanda".

I do suggset that you talk to a shrink. Not because there is something wrong with you, but since this seems to affect you in a bad way. And then it's better for your mental health that you deal with it.
Other than that I belive that the reason that you are "stuck" might be because of a time in you life you did enjoy, popular or not. And you miss the carefree days. There is nothing stopping you from advancing in life, and holding on to that feeling. That is what the weekends are for.

I'm just saying that since I'm currently 29, make about €2500 per month and spend them on a home projector so I can play videogames on a big screen. I'm just me, and I don't need to miss highschool. I get to be a child all I want. I'm an adult now, and I decide what that means.

X ~We are the people our parents warned us about

[–] Bloomania 12 years ago

I feel the same way about HS. I graduated in 2007, so its only been 5 years for me. I didn't date since boys didn't talk to me or gave me the time of day at all, I only had 2 good friends, who I'm still friends with. Because I saw movies like this and Clueless and other teen movies, and shows like Boy Meets World and Popular in middle school, I was expecting the best out of HS: I would look great, date, have a great posse of friends, go out a lot, parties, etc. But it wasn't, the only good year I would say was junior year. The others were lame, depressing, and boring. I expected too much, and feel like my teen years went to waste cause of it. Now I wish I could go back and redo them.

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