10 People From Your Hometown You Want to Avoid on Christmas

I have written this article before. I don't mean that in some metaphysical, déjà vu sense. I mean this literally. Last time, it was about Thanksgiving, but the principle is the same. And as is often the case with the Internet, everyone—from my esteemed peers over at BroBible to the laureates at TotalFratMove—seems to have written it, too.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said, "You never cross the same river twice." Not only does the river itself change, the particles shifting imperceptibly from second to second, you change too. You return to the river a different person than you were the last time you crossed, and so even a river that hasn't changed one iota would be viewed with new eyes.

An equally popular quote (with murkier attribution) is "You can never go home again." The same idea is true: your home changes, or you change, or both. Somewhere around your mid-twenties, this becomes very real. Right after college, you can come back and things are the same as they ever were. Everyone returns to their parents' house and recreates high school again. You perform the routines of high school parties from memory, a little older, a little wider. You go to bars and houses and basements, and try to sleep with the same people you did in high school, fuck around with the same friends you did in high school, and do the same dumb shit you did to pass the time back in high school, before you could do anything particularly fun.

And then at a certain point, all of that changes.

So, perhaps a better title for this piece might be "10 People From Your Hometown You Want to Avoid On Christmas If You're at the Exact Same Stage of Life I Am and Harbor the Same Complex Emotions About Where You Grew Up That I Do." But that wouldn't work. We spend a lot of time on SEO around here, and that title wouldn't be nearly snappy enough to drive the requisite traffic. So, let's stick with 10 People From Your Hometown You Want to Avoid on Christmas.

I don't hate moms. In fact, I have one of my own that I love very much. But there is a certain type of young mother who can be absolutely unbearable to be around. Just as certain people believe their advanced degree or personal wealth qualifies them as experts on anything and everything, some mothers believe that simply by completing a pretty regular human milestone, they now possess the wisdom and authority of the ages. As usual, The Onion has provided the perfect, concise illustration of what I'm talking about.

There is no winning with this particular kind of young mommy. If you aren't a parent, you'll get a serene, knowing smile followed by, "So, do you have any kids yet?" When you say, "No," you will get the pitying glance in return accompanied by some smug line like, "Well, they really are a treasure. A lot of work, yes. But an absolute treasure."

If you do have children, be prepared to be lectured on all the things you're doing wrong. You thought that you were going to have a quiet night away from the kids. You thought that since a doting grandma and grandpa have offered to take the tykes for the night while you finish up your shopping or grab one precious beer, you would be able to enjoy an evening's peace. Oh, how wrong you were. Instead of thinking about anything other than parenting, you will be treated to unwelcome diatribes about vaccinations, the quality of local schools, and the many virtues of parenthood.

Unlike many of the other obnoxious figures on this list, you are never truly safe from the #blessed mom. She could be at the mall, she could be at church, she could even be in your own family. If you get stuck around a #blessed mom this holiday season, remember to nod vigorously at every outlandish claim she makes until she takes a moment to helicopter parent her child, and when this moment comes, make a break for the door.

Drinking with the authority figures of your youth can be an amazing experience. One day your buddy's parents look at you with a smile, usher you into the garage, and say, "Young man, can I get you a cold one?" And, in that instant, you are welcomed into adulthood.

As with most things in life, there is a dark side to this scenario. It's one thing to be welcomed into the world of drinking with the parents in the garage. It's another thing entirely when parents intrude on the world of the young. At the hometown watering hole, you'll be mostly surrounded by other twentysomethings escaping the tyranny of family gatherings. And then, in the corner you'll notice... is that...yes...it's someone's dad.

This isn't the happy couple coming out for a drink with their kids. This isn't a group of moms enjoying a round of appletinis at Ruby Tuesday. This is the newly divorced dad, his rumpled shirt providing poor shelter for his new vulnerability, and he's buying a round of tequila for everyone who claims they went to school with their kid. This is the mom in the push-up bra on her fifth cosmo remarking about how "you've really grown up."

For the generation that grew up on Stifler's Mom and not Mrs. Robinson, it may seem appealing to try to score with the parent of someone you knew back when. While there are many wonderful things about being with an older partner, this is probably not the time or place. Let it go.

If you're feeling particularly generous, offer to give them a ride back to the condo they're staying in until they "get things figured out."

Allow me to draw a distinction between successful and "successful." Right around the time I turned 21, I went to the huge local sports bar to see which high school classmates I could see. For those who have ever been to beautiful passable York, PA, I'm talking about Cobblestone's. For those who haven't been, it's exactly what you're picturing: hardwood floor, dozens of mediocre beers on draft, dozens of TVs above the tables where you drink the mediocre beers.

In the throng of American Eagle plaid shirts and faded jeans, there was a guy wearing a suit. He had the large ring and large watch that marks a character as a potential villain in an '80s movie, and he was talking to anyone in earshot about how much money he was making.

High school sucked. People were mean to you. No matter how popular you were in high school, you tend to remember yourself as the nerdy outcast who has since blossomed into a beautiful swan. Somewhere in the recesses of our psyche, we all dream of returning triumphantly to our hometown and sticking it to everyone who was cruel to us way back when, word to Drake.

We dream and misremember, but only the truly sad among us try to live out those fantasies. I've had quite a few good beers with recovering high school bullies. I've never once enjoyed the company of the guy who shows up to the hometown bar in a suit ready to tell you about his investments.

For those of you young enough to drink late into the night and still get out of bed in the morning, you need to understand something: It's not that we don't want to drink like that anymore. It's that we just can't. I've always described drinking as taking the fun you could have tomorrow and adding it to tonight. Sure, you'll be a little hungover tomorrow, but tonight's joy will be worth tomorrow's pain. As you get older, the exchange rate gets worse and worse until a few beers lays you out until 2 p.m. the next day.

Everyone has that friend who can bait them into making stupid decisions. This one friend of mine can get me drinking Budweiser bottles by the half-dozen with the merest suggestion. I have a friend back home who baits me into shooting whiskey by calling me a pussy and claiming she can drink me under the table. Every time, she proves both of these claims true.

These people who refuse to let the deterioration of their body prevent them from downing as many shots as they can handle are pretty fun to hang out with that night. But then you spend the better part of the next day cursing their name as you puke for the first time since you drank all of those Jäger bombs the week after graduation.

One of the wonderful things about the Internet is how much you can simply ignore. Please sign my petition. Nope. Watch my vlog. Hard pass. Buy my D.I.Y. crafts. Thanks but no thanks. When you're back home this holiday season, you're going to have to be on guard for the entrepreneurial set.

An old acquaintance will approach you in the hour-long deli line and start in with how great it is to see you after all these years. Then she'll draw attention to her earrings or a wicker basket she happens to be carrying as though she were auditioning for a community theatre revival of Into the Woods. And then come those fateful words, "I've been great. Actually, I've got this little side business ..."

Guilting friends and family into buying things that would never sell on the free market is a longstanding American tradition. From tupperware to cosmetics, numerous pyramid schemes business empires have been built on the idea that everyone who cares about you is a potential rube customer. Please be careful this holiday season. You don't need that necklace made from willow branches. You really don't.

You would think that, eventually, the campaign of attrition that life has conducted on this man would stop him from playing Dave Matthews Band and Sublime covers on a weekly basis, but would you look at that, he's still here. Depending where you are, this guy comes in a variety of different genre stylings. In the suburbs, he rocks through the aforementioned bands best of lists with a splash of Red Hot Chili Peppers to keep things interesting. There's a slightly older, graying set that treat you to some Jimmy Buffet or the Eagles depending on just how chill he's feeling that night. Out in the country, you'll here a little more Garth Brooks and Johnny Cash.

This man looks a little different in every part of the country. But each have something in common. They make you wish you had just stayed in and drank the free beer at your parents' house instead of making the trek to the bar.

If politics and religion are the topics never to bring up in mixed company, it seems that proper etiquette dictates that sports and the weather are the things you're obligated to bring up in mixed company. Sports can be a lovely way to build common ground with those whom you have nothing in common. Except that, in the age of fantasy football and the ESPN industrial complex, there are people that take it too far. It's weird how many people are incapable of talking about anything but sports.

And it is truly amazing how the most dull, monotonous information has become acceptable barside banter. Though it's widely understood that the least interesting thing is someone else's fantasy football team, there are plenty of people out there ready to tell you how they almost picked up Odell Beckham Jr. Do you want to hear more about Jay Cutler's lack of "intangibles"? Or do you want to drunk-drive your car into a retaining wall?

This holiday season, do yourself a favor: If you see someone striding towards you decked out head to toe in gear of the local college or NFL team, walk in the other direction. If conversation is absolutely unavoidable because this person, is, say, your blood relation, make sure you leave before you move beyond past the three beer mark. Otherwise the conversation will shift to how they used to play tight end in high school, and the intense boredom you're feeling will suddenly become pity. And then that retaining wall starts calling.

You remember this guy from Facebook. He uses the word "thug." He's still trying to figure out what happened at Benghazi by playing out scenarios on a whiteboard in his basement. He can complain in the same breath about high taxes and crumbling infrastructure, about greedy teacher's unions and the uneducated youth. His natural habitat is staring into a screen—television, computer or smartphone, it doesn't matter—and shrieking into the void.

When this person is reduced to a Facebook avatar featuring an American flag and a bald eagle, they are easy to ignore. You can counter their caps-locked, poorly punctuated rants with articles from Mother Jones until the cows come home. When this person is an old classmate you run into at the bar, or the uncle on the easy chair in the basement, it's a different game. Arguing with these people in real life means using your leisure time to get into a shouting match with a brick wall. It not only means wasting your time, but the time of everyone around you. To engage them is to risk ruining the evening of everyone else in the room.

So don't. Don't engage. Stare at a wall. Register a new Tumblr. Set an interesting task for yourself, like, What's the least number of sentences it'll take to explain hashtags to Grandma? Literally do anything other than engage.

During college and even for a couple years after, this guy is the best. You come back home after a long fall of grinding out essays and trudging through internships, and this guy is always ready and willing to party. Whether it's a keg stand, a naked cannonball into a pool, or some light vandalism, this guys just knows what you need.

But the party ends, and everyone seems to know but him.

Eventually, you aren't so quick to answer his phone calls. Eventually, you start hiding booze when he comes over to the house. Eventually, you realize those plans of going back to school or apprenticing with a plumber or joining the army—they aren't gonna happen.

You tell yourself that this doesn't change your friendship. You guys go way back. But one night he'll go too far. He'll make a scene. He'll insult your date. He'll make a pass at a family member. He'll throw a punch at the bouncer. If he's lucky, he'll pass out on the bar. If he's unlucky, he'll just hit a telephone pole on the drive home.

No matter what it is, he'll do something to make you wish you had stopped answering the phone a long time ago. He'll teach you the hard lesson that some friendships are better left in the past.

At this point, most of my friends have packed up and left my hometown. That's the benefit of growing up somewhere where there aren't many opportunities. However, I have many friends who report the same strange, sad experience. Even now, years after they've gone off to their corner of the country to pursue their various dreams, they return home to a guilt trip.

Sometimes it's the long-suffering mother who wants their kid "to know they always have a place back home." Sometimes it's the childhood friend who is quick to remind them of "how we always thought we'd end up back here someday." Sometimes it's the ex who makes a point to remind them of what they might have had.

It's an odd thing, a person who would resent you for trying to get what you want. It's hard to say why this happens. There's probably a complex bouquet of emotions behind it that has to do with feeling trapped or something. Maybe we're all just projecting.

It's hard to say what makes a person feel this way, but it's easy to say how you should handle it: get out.