How To Deal When Your Boyfriend Is A Big Baby!

Dating a man who hasn’t grown up might seem fun—but it’s ‘adult time’, now!

- Mbali Bloom and Kim Garner

"At my graduation, my boyfriend snuck up behind me and tripped me for a laugh,’ says 22-year- old Sasha*. ‘I was on the floor in my Zara dress, with everyone staring, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I was so angry, I told him to grow up!”

It probably wasn’t the first time a guy had been told that—and it certainly won’t be the last. That’s because Sasha’s boyfriend, and a high percentage of men— especially those in their 20s and 30s—suffer from what pop psychology calls Peter Pan Syndrome (PPS, aka ‘kidulthood’): an inability to mature. Initially, it can be fun. “He wanted to hike, stay up all night, and watch the sunrise,’ says Sasha. But while she was growing up, he remained emotionally immature—and that could spell an unhappy ending to a relationship.

PETER WHO?

Initially discussed by Dan Kiley in his book The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up, men with the syndrome lack any desire to take responsibility for their life or to make adult commitments. They refuse to be active, adult members of society; they are, as Urban Dictionary bluntly puts it, ‘in their mid-20s, still living with their parents, while working a minimum-wage job and carrying a student loan for an arts degree’.