Written after posting a stupid fucking Instagram, but I’ve been posting a toxic amount of photos of myself lately, so I did a photo of my Starbucks. But it’s cool cuz it’s iced tea. And I did a Kanye West lyric as a caption because I’m trying that formula of “dumb photo + wholly unrelated rap lyric = tons of likes” because it’s worked for every insufferable fake-hipster I go to school with. Is that tea piping hot? Can’t be my tea, cuz mine is iced. BOOM.

On Saturday, I worked a concert. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say what it is, so I’ll just make up a name. It was a Schroye Tevan concert. You’ll never be able to decode that.

Aside from a handful of older gays (older=older than me=65+ because I’m 60; just kidding I’m 12), the audience was basically teenagers. Everyone was glittery and gay, even when they weren’t, and it was a balm to my sore heart after a rough week. It was, however, trying to be in the same room as 6,000 hormonal tweenagers because they have ABSOLUTELY no chill. Like, I have very little chill, but these kids need to be frozen Walt Disney-style. They need major chill.

After the opener—Schua Dipa, who was awesome—I was doing rotating slowly in a circle to keep from being too bored and these two teenaged girls came down from their seats to where I was standing.

“You seem like you’re have so much fun, so we had to join,” they said/squealed.

I did my platonic smile, “Oh yeah, I’m having a blast.”

They were from upstate New York—five hours away from where I live/civilization—and were seniors in high school. Either they thought I was really fucking cool—reminder, I’m a 21-year-old working a Schroye Tevan concert on a Saturday night—or they were desperate, but they did that thing that all teenagers do when they’re talking to anyone older. They tried to act cool.

They told me how they bought their outfits—T.J. Maxx, which I’m not dissing because I’m a Maxxinista—and how they went to this “cool pizza place” near MIT. Okay, there are no “cool pizza places.” Pizza is just pizza, unless it’s a calzone and then it’s not pizza. They were telling me how they kept getting hit on by older dudes—I was snarky enough to use my “disgusted” face and have it look like a “oh no you didn’t girlfriend” face—who gave them their food.

This I find hard to believe because they’re bragging that older, married men gave them their leftover pizza? How? And more importantly why? And most importantly ew?

They asked me what I like to do in Boston, which is like asking someone how their year was—like where do I start? Why do you even care?—and I just said that I like to chill and blah blah blah. They started talking about drinking—I did say at one point, “You guys are literally seventeen”—and when I commented on them talking about margaritas, they had this to say.

ME: the place across the street has good margs.

MAXXINISTA #1: Omg I love margaritas.

MAXXINISTA #2: I’m more of a prosecco person.

ME: (no words, just stares at MAXX. #2)

ME: (internal monologue) You having prosecco once last New Year’s Eve with your parents is not you being “a prosecco person”.

Then Maxxinista #1 told me that her grandmother is 91 but is dating a 65-year-old and recently went to an orgy. This was in response to Maxxinista #2 telling me, WITHOUT PROMPT, that she has two lesbian grandmothers who run a farm—duh. This was in response to me saying, “Oh look, a pride flag.”

I LOVE TEENAGERS.

During the encore, my little friends came down again and tried to get me to dance. I didn’t, because omg I did not want anyone seeing me dance with them!!!1! Omg so embarrassing!! Like what if Tiffany saw me! She would tease me so bad in Chem II!!!!! NO WAY!!!!1!

The girls then asked me my name—wearing a nametag and we’ve been talking for twenty minutes—before going ‘OMG UR NAME TAG.’ Then they told me that I didn’t look like a Danny. They said I looked like a Seth.

“Seth?!” I screeched.

“Yes!!! Such a good name!” they screeched back. Maxxinista #2 then told me that the college she’s applying to allows cats, and she wants a cat and wants to name him Seth. So, in their defense, “Seth” might’ve been the only name they know. Or I look like a giant pussy.

The rest of the concert was pretty uneventful. I spent forty minutes staring at the high school gay in my section who had somehow planned a full 90-minute interpretive dance to the concert, while his lady friend just stood there watching him—that’s a lie; about fifty minutes in, she sat down and stared up at him from the floor.

Teenagers are, like, the worst about technology. I know that people my age are boning their phones, but teenagers are worse thrice times over. I saw at least five different instances of people SnapChatting their way into the concert floor, when nothing was happening and the overhead lights were glaring. They would put their flashlights on for every other song, and didn’t understand the “sexy casual drifting sway of the light” motion. Instead, they “windshield wiper”-ed for half the concert. I mean, I was an asshole at 16, but I was an asshole with a Samsung Alias 2.

Additionally, all teenagers look as old at 17 as I do right now. And they’re all gorgeous. It’s so unfair. I only recently—like “two Wednesdays ago” recently—got hot, but I kept seeing all these beautifully dressed beautiful gays and had to keep thinking, “they’re in high school; you’re not Woody Allen; they’re in high school.” They might’ve been in college, but seriously who can take a risk like that?

There were beautiful moments though. At one point, during “Heaven” (name?), everyone pulled out sheets of paper they had been given before. Each section was a different color, and they put their flashlights on behind the paper, turning the entire arena into one huge rainbow. One person near me had an iPhone 4, so she fucked up, but other than that, it was stunning.

It was nice to see young people, younger than me, who were as passionate about politics and queer rights. They didn’t/couldn’t even vote in the election (some of them are too young for driving permits) but they were still deeply invested in our country. And I think, weirdly enough, that’s what I needed to see. That a bunch of vapid, hormonal, angsty teens in Adidas Superstars and tube tops (that was just the boys, btw) could be as passionate and wordly and educated and righteously angry and wonderfully committed to our world.

Was anyone expecting an article that used the word “Maxxinista” so much to end up on an uplifting note? I certainly wasn’t.

P.S./Side bar: dont’ you love how everyone who’s like “Ugh i love the ’90s!!!!” was born in 2002. Chill the fuck out, dude.