The Bigfoot Principle

So, I’ve been thinking, as I often find myself doing, of how life changes as you grow older. Today, I’m mulling conversation matter, and how the conversations of a twenty-year old and the conversations of a thirty-year old are drastically different. Take me for example. When I was twenty, conversations would be about the following: girls, sports, girls, music, sports, food, girls, and girls playing sports. Now, however, I find myself talking about many different things, such as work, politics (Ew! I know!), work, religion, travel, and many other things that would make a twenty-year old scoff, assuming that they weren’t listening to an iPod and could actually overhear somebody else’s conversation. What’s weird is that this doesn’t feel odd at all. It seems strangely normal, and I’ve grown to accept it as a part of growing up.

(For the record, however, the topics of a twenty-year old are still batted around on occasion, lest you think I’ve turned into some sort of uppity, high-class snob.)

Luckily, however, there is an exception, a time when speaking like a twenty-year old is still appropriate. This is when you’re with the friends who you were once twenty-years old with, people of your own age whom with you grew up. Sure, you still discuss the thirty-year old things with them, but you can occasionally regress to topics of great foolishness or non-importance, and it doesn't seem strange at all.

Take my friend Lurch. Just recently we were discussing an upcoming trip to Washington state, where the topic of Bigfoot naturally came up. (“Hey, I just figured out that we’re going to be in Bigfoot country!”) At some point, a completely non-mature idea came to me, which I revealed to him: We should get some sort of fake Bigfoot, strap him to the roof of our rental car, and drive around like that the whole time, all while acting completely casual about it. Lurch’s response: “I was just thinking the same thing!” We then proceeded to laugh hysterically and make follow up jokes for quite a long time afterwards.

This was obviously not a mature conversation. If I tried to have this discussion with anybody else, such as my dad or a co-worker, it would have been strange, but with a close friend of my own age, it seemed totally normal.

I’m sure that there is already a term for this, but for my own intents and purposes, I am going to call it the Bigfoot Principle. I urge you all to start using it. I’d like it to catch on.

Now, does anybody know the easiest way to construct a fake Bigfoot? It’s kind of important.