Identity Crisis

I've been thinking a lot today about who I am. No really.

While I'd like to think of myself as an individual, I've always defined myself as a member of a group. Throughout my life I associated with particular kinds of people, and they were who I was. I've been, in rough order, a Skateboarder, a Basketball Player, a Slacker, and an Indie Rocker. When I'm in that phase of my life I tend to hang out with those kinds of people, act that kind of way, do those kinds of things. Yet there was always some overlap. When I get bored of my current group I could always go back to the old group. But not anymore.

As I've gotten older, I've grown out of these groups. I'm too old to really skateboard anymore, not without feeling foolish. My body won't cooperate enough to play basketball. I've accomplished too much to really be a decent slacker at this point. And I've lost my desire to seek out new bands. So I'm not connected with these groups anymore, and honestly right now I don't know who to connect with.

I'm resisting the temptation to just be the guy that becomes the male version of his girlfriend. Baby is fantastic, and her taste in music and fashion and life and everything else has really grown on me. But I don't want it to get to the point where people are laughing at me because I've changed into her. At least I don't want them to laugh any more than they already are.

I feel like I should be able to find some group to belong to. But I don't know where to look. I'm stuck in between being too old for stuff that teenagers do and too old for stuff that old people do. I don't have the health to handle becoming an Alcoholic, and I don't have the means to become a Golfer. I can't give in completely to my nerdy urges to become a full-time Gamer or Computer Dork, but I'm not cool enough to work the Aging Hipster angle.

So I'm just sorta lost right now. I'm rapidly losing touch with my friends from my previous groups, and I don't really have any plan in place to find new friends. I'm used to friends drifting in and out of my life- that's happened to me since I was a kid. But I was able to balance that with what was always an influx of new people. These days the number of people I keep in my cell phone seems to keep shrinking, and I seem to get more spam than real emails. I rarely see people I considered close friends just a year or two ago. And worse (although good for them), I see them adjusting to their changing groups and identities with greater ease than me.

I guess maybe this is part of growing up, but it's lousy. I have this fear I'm going to end up like my parents. Sitting at home in the evening and building my life around my TV shows. Maybe the group I'm joining is Old People. Bitter.