In those days, between the ages of 12 and 18 you meant nothing. You were the extra place at the side table if someone came to dinner. You were of no interest to anyone.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was hanging out with no one under 21. I thought that if I really wanted to fit in I had to... show them that I was in a way just as adult as they were, 'cause I could hold my own just as well as they could, if not better.
To be honest dinner conversations was the worst bit about being a child and listening to the boring people around me.
There's a value to getting the meal on the table every night, and there's a value to being an old-school kind of parent.
I didn't grow up in a traditional family, and I never had a family dinner around the table, so whenever I actually had a dinner 'plan,' it meant a lot to me; it made me feel excited and safe.
When I was 12, that's when I went to college. All my friends were 20, 21, and I was 12. It didn't even occur to me that that was strange.
You can imagine the kind of dinner parties I had to go to at a young age... pretty dull.
Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.
I was raised with adults. I skipped knowing how to interact as a normal teenage person.
Whereupon, at the tender age of thirteen, I set upon the path of playing nothing but hookers.
As I was growing up, all meals, including breakfast, were family occasions, and you all sat down to eat together - and you had to finish everything as well.