I had saved up over $1300 from odd jobs/paper route in my teens just for it. On my 18th, I bought 30 hits of acid and a few cases of beer for me and my friends, rented a motel room under a different name 80 miles from home, and partied for about 2 days.

All of my friends got arrested and I was homeless, so I just slept in my truck all day.

As you can tell people love me at parties.

Lmao I think lemmy.world bans anyone admitting to be under 18 so if admins see this, you’d be banned for a day lol

But anyways, when I was 18… I was kinda in an existential crisis so I kindabinged watched The Good Place… don’t remember doing any thing special…

Don’t think I got a birthday cake… I mean I didnt even ask for one, cakes arent even that good once you get older and like sweet things are kinda overwhelming for taste buds sort of

I think I might have went to a Chinese restaurant and had dim sum or something. Or maybe like ordered food… forgot what I did… but these things like ordering food are common enough that it didn’t exactly feel special (first world problems?) (I think restaurants were kinds closed during covid, so I think we just ordered food, don’t think I got a cake since I didn’t really care)

Like ever since I got to like… idk 10 or something… I don’t remember birthdays becoming that important… it’s mostly just like:

mom: “hey, what do you want for your birthday? want a cake?” like just so casual…

then mom be like, “oh btw did you know I had to go through a C-Section to give birth to you, do you feel grateful that I sacrificed so much for you? 🤗” “Also I had to pay a lot of fines for giving birth to you against one child policy”

Oh yeah, elections…

I wasn’t old enough for primaries but I was old enough for the 2020 US presidential election and good thing my mom got citizenship so I didn’t have to go through that myself so I was already citizen… cuz the naturalization would’ve taken so long that I’d miss the chance to vote in 2020, so yea good thing I didn’t have to spend so much time go through naturalizarion. I voted Biden obviously, dickhead trump literally wants to deport me lol

Had 4 years of relief then this shit happened again FFS 🤦‍♂️

I took frankly far too much of whatever was put in front of me and I’m not fully sure of what happened for most of the might but was mostly a good night. As to feeling different no not really as I’d already been out of school and working for a couple of years at that point so not massively different in many ways aside from I could buy booze now without fear of getting denied.

Nothing special. I was just one year older. I never was much into birthday and I’m now many, many years older than 18 ;)

My parents are throwing me a huge party, my dad’s idea, of course, and it’s nonnegotiable

It probably is negotiable but it may happen the stakes are too high. Hard to say without any context.

I threw my dad out of my first home the day he came to visit. Right after he started behaving like he used to when I was living under his own roof, I asked him to stop. He did not. I explained him I was not living at his place anymore and he was my guest and he should stop now unless he wanted me to show him the door. He persisted. I grabbed him by the seat of his pant and drove him out, shutting the door on him. It was not nice and it did not end in the most respectful way but it was still a negotiation ;)

Nothing noteworthy about 18, except voting and easier job hunts (technically, but I had to change cities to find work still, so YMMV). 21 was boring too.

But a week from now you’ll be 40.

Don’t be one of those who at 40 realizes they should have been investing 20% of their income and utilizing their employers 401k match, or taking better care of their health.

The time goes by real fast. Faster than as a teen.

Or at least it tends to seem that way.

Enjoy your 18th today.

Plan for you 60th tomorrow.

Don’t wait.

I didn’t have a lot going on at that age, I don’t remember doing anything special.

I was ill and throwing up on my 18th birthday. I had a family party a few days later when I’d finished my last A Level exam though. Nothing huge, just a nice meal together.

I hate birthdays so I hoped to do nothing. My parents didn’t quite respect that, but they didn’t do much, thankfully… Just a small “party”, nothing very memorable, thankfully.

Good luck with the embodiment of greed over there lol And happy birthday!

My family are shit. I don’t think any of them even remembered it was my 18th. I invited some friends over to the flat I was staying at and we played cricket in the carpark, then drank beers for a couple of hours.

Went out for dinner with my family because it was a week night.

That weekend got tanked at a LAN Party.

In my country it meant I was able to vote, buy alcohol and get a driver’s license. I was never interested in alcohol, but I did get a driver’s license a few months later. I didn’t feel that different, but my parents liked that I could ship stuff around for them. I indulged in some voting, too.

I honestly don’t remember. I don’t think it was anything special. My family was never big on birthday parties, and subsequently I haven’t been either. More than likely I stayed in, ordered a pizza and watched Princess Bride like I do every year.

I turned 18 during COVID, so not really.

My whole childhood I had seen the “adult” section of Family video and dreamed of being old enough to go in (I didn’t know what it actually was for a long while)

I had stopped in during my last week of being 17 and saw the adult section, but decided against going in yet. I was only a week away, I might as well wait. Right?

The bastards closed the store the day before my 18th birthday. Waited my whole life just go be shut down one day before.

I’m sure it wouldn’t have lived up to the hype in my brain from my younger self, but it annoyed the shit out of me that I’d never get to see what was back there. By 1 day!!

Happy birthday, the next years go by so much faster than you could ever believe