The Man

A friend who recently got engaged and successfully attached Phd to his name had a fit of manliness over the weekend. After 30 years of listening to his sober second thought, he decided that the weekend was ripe for debauchery at a local strip club. He went with his fiancee.

A concerned friend wanted to do something about this belated youthful exuberance/mistake. "He's too old for this. He should be doing this when he was 16 or 17....not at this time." I told him that going to a strip club and getting drunk are some of the things one must experience as a man.  Concerned friend couldn't disagree with this. I guess what bothers him most is not that his prudish friend finally broke free of his prudish shell but that in emerging from his chrysalis he was accompanied by the fiancee. "I would have gone alone," he excessively shared.

I conjectured that perhaps newly minted party-boy friend was on a high, what with consecutive accomplishments under his belt. This altered-state might have contributed to his reckless and feckless exploit into the world of impropriety. But as it is a high, his essence as the thinking, rational man remains unchanged and will eventually re-emerge. Give him a break.

Being crazy at 30 is actually a good thing and I will even go further to say that people should go crazy only at 30. At 30, we have the benefit of a refined mind and tempered emotions--well typically. And so, however crazy a night of drinking turns out for a 30 year old, it still would be tame compared to what could have been on a night of drinking 14 years earlier. 

I'm sure our friend will be alright.