What's to be done?

Fifteen year olds have many admirable traits. One of these is not their belief in their own infallibility, which is manifested in their believing themselves to be always right. Another distasteful aspect of the personality's of many young adults is their desire for "dirty" conversation. One unfortunate consequence of these two behavioral traits is the general disregard for polite conventions in conversation.

Both of these traits are understandable- the one a result of immature youth yet to taste the nectar of gray, the other the result of hormonal changes and other such things. As such, the bearers of these traits can not be castigated for having them; they can be taught to control themselves, and even to change them and begin the process of maturation, but to criticize? It can't rightly be done.

There is another species altogether, one that has long passed the age of crude humor and that realizes its own humanity, its own ability to make mistakes. The people who make up this group are not necessarily immune to the charms of the fifteen year old life, but rather recognize that while it may have been fun at the time, it is now time to move on. Because these people have lived the life and have come to recognize its deficiencies, they are uniquely suited to moving beyond it. There are certainly times when aspects of this life are acceptable; in a bar or among close friends, there can be no gainsaying the fact that behaving like a fifteen year old has its merits.

Be that as it may, there are certain people who do not appear to grasp the essential points of getting older, namely the recognizing of one's social standing and location in time and space. Whether these people are deluding themselves or merely have had their development arrested is outside the purview of this article, but the object is clear in either case. These people, being unaware (for whatever reason), or at the very least deluding themselves, are very firmly entrenched in their behavioral patterns. The reason they're so firmly entrenched is because they, like people many years younger, believe themselves to be infallible, and even worse have not the redeeming quality of being young and foolish. The result is a horrendous lack of social sense, grace, and tact. These people wouldn't know etiquette if it hit them in the head with a baseball bat.

What is to be done with these people? Apparently they are beyond the pale of humanity. Unlike their younger brethren, they have no future perfect. In point of fact, they have moved beyond the normally allotted time which is reserved for maturation and thus seemingly will live the rest of their lives in blissful fifteen year old-land. Blissful, that is to say, for them, for their contemporaries will undoubtedly be too polite to point out their failings. I suppose there is always the chance for a late blooming, but these sorts of things can't be counted on. Is there no other solution?