My wife and I were out to lunch yesterday at Aladdin’s in Worthington. Not my typical kind of place, but I’m always open to trying new things. My general feeling about Mediterranean food is that they serve a lot less meat (though it’s seasoned quite well) than I would like to see on my plate, even if it is closer to the amount of meat you should actually eat in a portion.
Stupid American “diet”.
Anyway.
As it happens our server shared the same first name as my wife, a name that isn’t particularly common among people our age. The server commented that she actually knew a ton of people in “her generation” that had the name. Our server was 22. I’m 30 years old and my wife is … less than that but approximately the same age as me. And yet apparently we’re part of a different generation.
The thing is, we totally are.
I’ve written before about “the floppy generation” and I’ve heard some people my age and a little older called the “Oregon Trail” generation. Both theories express the difference in generation based on the technologies they grew up with. We watched the internet being born, but still remember libraries and film strips, and really old games.
However, as it was pointed out to me by the boomers and the Gen X’rs in my office, they’ve watched the computer go from the size of a room to the size of a watch in their lifetime. The computers that me and you consider stone age relics were the iPad’s of their day relative to their starting point.
So maybe technology isn’t the best way to define the divide, or at least hardware. Social media and texting and a general desire to self promote has certainly shaped the current millennial generation, but it’s not like those of us sandwiched in the middle aren’t trying to get in on these things as well.
We had an electrician in this weekend who was talking about how it must seem strange to us to see someone handwriting a receipt on paper (he had an old carbon paper receipt book), but truthfully I know many people my age who carry around notepads and little pieces of paper right next to their gadgets. Typing random little notes to yourself on a tablet still seems much more involved than just a quick note on paper. I suspect that this is still true for people in that 8 years younger than me generation.
So what makes us different? Well I think generational lines can be fuzzy and ultimately it’s just a feeling. This young lady took one look at us and guessed we were in a different generation, even if other people might lump us together. It’s perception, values, gut feelings.
Or maybe I just look really old. But if I do, please don’t tell me.
[BTW] : Ben Trube, Writer 