Adult Peer Pressure

We all remember those bygone years of yesteryear when our loving parents warned us of the inherent dangers of "peer pressure." They would recite modern proverbs about friends jumping off bridges, and others that I can't recall, just to engrain in us this understanding: Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean that we have to do it. For me, however, being the sheltered child that I was, that included all kinds of things... like staying up later than nine o'clock, or using the cheat codes on Contra (up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right...). What they should have been teaching us, however, is that this whole idea of pressure from the peers doesn't go away. Oh no... it just changes focus, and suddenly becomes acceptable. Well I cry foul, sir... I cry foul!

Now that I'm in my adult years, I may not have "friends," so called, who are trying to turn me on to the latest drug on the streets. But that doesn't mean the "peer pressure" beast doesn't show it's ugly face, from time to time! At the risk of being a little graphic, let me share two specific examples that have happened to me in the past eighteen months - both involving food.

The first example that comes to mind happened at a Christmas party. The host made a "delicious" - or so she would have me believe - desert that involved peanut butter and something crunchy. Incidentally, both of which are things I'm not particularly fond of. She offers. I respectfully decline. She insists - asserting that it was the "best thing ever," and that I "had to try it." I caved. Even now, I hang my head in shame.

The second example isn't unlike the first. At a friend's house playing an obscure board game, said "friends" offer me a brownie... a brownie to end all brownies, and will most certainly change my life. Knowing that I only care for box-mix brownies covered with cream-cheese icing, I declined. They threatened me with idle and harmless threats. Again, I caved. Yet another victim of Adult Peer Pressure (APP).

Even now, I'm reminded of the timeless advice we received under the Reagan Administration when we were encouraged to "just say no." Well, I tried, Nancy... Lord knows I tried. But they just wouldn't listen.

I've said too much.