by Frank Frakes

Ever wonder why that guy at your teacher or company meeting won’t shut up? Or how about that woman who stands in line at every city council meeting for her chance to speak and then bores the hell out of everyone? Well, a prominent Bay Area psychologist thinks she has the answer.

Dr. Chiyo Mayeda, an expert in the study of midlife crises, told the Dragonfly Report that behaviors exhibited by people going through this age-old process have changed dramatically over the past two decades.

According to Dr. Mayeda who resides in Albany, in the past men would buy sports cars, women would go to extremes to look younger, and both would exhibit abrupt changes such as quitting a job and becoming more impulsive. Nowadays, it’s more likely to find both men and women suffering from this adjustment disorder to be standing in line for their chance to speak during the public comment phase at city council meetings throughout the country.

Dr. Mayeda said that while attending Albany City Council meetings to learn about some public policy issues of concern to her, she noticed that many of the same middle-aged people were standing in line at every meeting to comment on everything and anything.

“At first glance, I thought it was an honorable way to participate in our democratic process but the more I observed I realized that there was something more at play,” explained Mayeda. “At one meeting, a woman got up and when it was her turn to speak, she forgot why she went up in the first place. Others would comment ad nauseam adding no real value to the topic being discussed,” she continued.

She said she felt that even the mayor and city council members, although seemingly engaged in the real issues, would sometimes just babble on, demonstrating that they also had an underlying problem. She then prepared a survey and gave it to several attendees as well as a few city council members. After examining the results, she was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the banal commenting at these meetings was a manifestation of deep-rooted midlife crises.

She went on to study interactions at company meetings both public and private and documented the same phenomenon. 

We asked Dr. Mayeda what one could do if they think they might be going through a midlife crisis.

“The answer is simple,” she said. “Just shut up. Please shut up.”