It's funny, the way your mind can work sometimes. I was watching an episode of 'Seinfeld' the other day and I realised that I had now gravitated to the same age as the stars of the show (not the age they are now, obviously!). It's a bit sobering, that sort of realisation; especially as when I started watching it I was only about nineteen and they all seemed ancient.
Some people can be quite unknowingly cruel when they're hovering around nineteen and its environs. My twenty-one year old sister asked me, a little while back, if her turning twenty-one had made me feel "old". She was joking, but there was a touch of smugness about her question as well. And I remembered how I used to do the same sort of thing; when I turned twenty-two there was a lady in my office who turned forty on the same day. I wrote out a 'My Condolences' card in place of a birthday card and bought her a pot of anti-ageing moisturiser as a 'joke' present. Oh, my waggish sense of humour! I'm sure she found all that bloody hilarious (luckily, we got on - and we still did after our birthdays had passed).
So after my 'Seinfeld' realisation I started wondering what other American sitcoms I could look forward to 'starring' in as I got older. Obviously, when you're in your mid-to-late twenties you're in 'Friends'...all twinkly-eyed aspiration and angst about relationships. On my thirtieth birthday, the first thing I did on getting up that morning was watch the episode entitled 'The One Where They All Turn Thirty'.
That milestone passed, I've moved on to 'Seinfeld' these days; now in my mid-thirties, still not completely settled in life; still contemplating what's going to happen next, but with far less angst and far too much dwelling on life's meaningless minutiae. And discovering that life's meaningless minutiae is actually what makes it all interesting in the first place. That's probably the biggest reason why I'd be totally unsuited to having kids; because it would mean I wouldn't have any time for contemplating what might happen if everyone in Glasgow had to do a forced house-swap with everyone in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I'd miss things like that.
After 'Seinfeld' you move on to your forties, and the endearing pretentiousness of 'Frasier' beckons. I've always been a tad pretentious anyway, so the best I can hope for is that it will become endearing as I get older. Following that, it's on to the exquisite shouty grumpiness of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', whereby you say EXACTLY what you think without fear of the consequences, or whether or not people like you. Liberating, but perhaps with fewer friends.
Following that, I suppose it's on to 'The Golden Girls', whereby you realise you've done a full circle and you're basically back to the 'Friends'-style twinkly eyed aspiration and angst about relationships. But hopefully by now it's a bit richer, and a bit more interesting...even if it also means you've got at least one of your parents living with you. But hey, that's what makes it all interesting, and if you're lucky said parent will be the provider of several comedic scrapes you'll be able to laugh at together over a nice glass of wine. If you're lucky.
And there ends my tour of life through American sitcoms. I tried to think of English ones to compare with but they're mostly ageless; most people without families could star in 'Peep Show' or 'Blackadder' however old they were. I think the best I can personally hope for is not to gravitate towards 'My Family'...because the consequences of that could be quite harsh.
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