> kids primarily only socialize with kids +/- about one year of age
This was a huge realization for me after getting into the "real world". I suddenly had coworkers who had kids as old as I am. At times I felt like I had more in common with their kids than them, because they would mention things that happened before I was even born. I had worked at other jobs before, but excluding the managers, everyone was around my age.
In school, even 5 years seemed like a huge gap--"Wow, he's in college, I'm still in High School!", doesn't seem like that much.
Another point about kid vs adult socialization is as a HS kid approx 50% of my classmates were in my possible dating pool, whereas entering the adult world the possible dating pool evaporated to perhaps 1% or so of my coworkers and general social network, because so many are happily married, three times my age, sausagefest male:female ratio, whatever.
So showing off to your social network to get dating attention suddenly becomes pretty much worthless once you're not a kid anymore, which has a pretty big impact.
This was a huge realization for me after getting into the "real world". I suddenly had coworkers who had kids as old as I am. At times I felt like I had more in common with their kids than them, because they would mention things that happened before I was even born. I had worked at other jobs before, but excluding the managers, everyone was around my age.
In school, even 5 years seemed like a huge gap--"Wow, he's in college, I'm still in High School!", doesn't seem like that much.