Being an Adult Gym Fan is Like Being a 25 Year Old Model, but Less Glamorous

You know how on America's Next Top Model, Tyra Banks is always stressing that age 25 isn't old in the real world but it's old in the modelling world?

That's sort of how I feel being a 22 year old gymnastics fan.

I mean, I'm a young adult and in the grand scheme of life, I'm young, period. But holy cow, among the 19000 people at the trials, I'm pretty sure I was in the one percent of adults that were not there as parental supervision.

Take my experience in the Carly Patterson autograph line. There were two girls in front of me, they looked like college students maybe. I kept hearing the taller one literally giving a comprehensive explanation of USA gymnastics in the past ten years or so and my heart soared. Finally someone I could carry on an educated, gymnastics conversation with! We chatted for the duration of our wait while my mom talked about non-gymnastics things with the shorter friend. After I got my (blurry, thanks mom), picture with Carly, the four of us wished each other well and parted ways.

Then my mom said, "Do you know how old those girls were?"
I guessed, "I don't know, eighteen?"
"Fifteen!"

Sheesh! And fifteen is even old for the demographic of the crowd! I mean, show me a girl in the audience who had graduated middle school and I'll be happy to attempt a double double.

Ok, I get it. Gymnastics has sparkly leotards and pretty hair and cool flips and yada yada yada. I get why it attracts little girls. And really, you can't be very old and actually do gymnastics, so unlike basketball and soccer and baseball, us older fans can only spectate.

But it was maybe a little bit disheartening, and slightly embarrassing to feel so old every time I go to an event. I shouldn't have to be embarrassed about being a fan of a sport that I love! So what if I'm 22 and have only ever donned a leotard for a Halloween costume! So what if people probably assume I'm 12 because I've never made it to the mythical five feet (ok, I've never made it to 4'10 either).

I'm just to keep on doing my thing. And if there is an autograph line to get into, you can bet I'll be proudly standing between eight year olds who don't even know who Carly Patterson is.