Yeppies — identified in a recent report by the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) — are life shoppers who browse careers, relationships and lifestyles in search of the dream existence, putting off grown-up decisions and commitments until they are satisfied they have exhausted all the options. And the poster children for the yeppie generation are certainly out there. Look at the singer/songwriter James Blunt, 28, who left the Household Cavalry only to storm up the music charts. Or Tilly Bagshawe, who quit her job as a headhunter at 29 to become a bestselling novelist.
But the search for perfection isn’t confined to your twenties — sometimes it’s hard to stop wandering and actually commit to anything. Take the experience junkie Paul Foley, 36, an Oxford graduate who lives in Thailand where he works as a conservationist. Before that, he was a scuba-diving instructor in the Philippines, after travelling through Asia on a t’ai chi odyssey. That was after he quit the music industry, which was after striking advertising off the list. “I haven’t finished,” says Foley. “I will write a book, I will make a movie. I will not live in Britain again. I want to walk up that mountain to see what’s on the other side.”
It sounds tempting — travelling the world, “trying on” exotic locations, tasting careers like Goldilocks tastes porridge, dismissing nine out of 10 model partners, because you’re looking for the perfect 10. Instead of one predictable story line with a potentially sad ending, why not spread your bets?
“There is nothing worse than people who just settle with someone to relieve them of their loneliness,” says Geoff Dyer, whose slacker travel writing narrates his accumulation of worldly experiences. “It’s important to hold out for perfection rather than live with a rumbling sense of selling yourself short. It’s better to be high in Goa, if the alternative is grinding down in a factory somewhere.”
But there can be trouble in paradise. By deferring commitment, there is a danger of never being in anything long enough to succeed. Conventional markers of success — marriage, kids, dog, house — might just pass the perfection-seeker by. While catching that plane to the promised land, you might just end up missing the boat.
And while the twentysomething yeppie is sun-kissed, nubile and vibrating with joie de vivre, the thirty- or fortysomething experience junkie withers with age. Instead of building assets, they throw it all away — good looks, friends, savings. In their thirties, they’re broke, kipping on friends’ floors, with nothing but an unfinished novel and a collection of fiancés as collateral. By their forties, they are a jack of all trades and master of none, with a kid they never see on the other side of the world, borrowing money from their parents to pay their alimony, while losing their hair, their energy and their credibility. By the time they are 50, they are to the yeppie what the dirty old man is to the young stud.
“As an expat, you’re neither here nor there,” says Foley. “There is a trade-off of family support, and I don’t get invited to weddings any more — it’s very much out of sight, out of mind.” Foley also faces debts of £30,000. “With that, I would be unable to survive in normal society and get a mortgage, for example. Even the mechanics of dating are very tricky for me.”
“Everybody hankers after the idea of quitting and doing something irresponsible, but most are aware that crunch time is coming,” says Peter Marsh of the SIRC. “Refusing to compromise or commit carries the downside of not having roots, which erodes one’s sense of who you are or where you’re going.”
“Looking for perfection can be a hindrance,” says the self- confessed life-shopper Catherine Royle, 33, who last month left her job at a design agency to go to Sri Lanka as an aid worker. “Lots of career changes look bad on your CV. And I have walked away from textbook-brilliant relationships because I always think there is something better round the corner. The quest makes us selfish, and that’s quite destructive. It can definitely turn sour.”
This pursuit of perfection is in danger of turning into a contemporary malaise. Self-help bookshelves are stuffed with manuals such as When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough and Perfecting Ourselves to Death. As the academic Susan Greenfield says: “We have more now than we have ever had, and yet we are harder than ever to please.” It’s an echo of Salvador Dali’s pearl of wisdom: “Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.”
Maude Tinsley, 42, realises that her relentless quest for something better failed to bring her happiness. With an IQ in the 150s, she dropped out of university after discovering partying, then qualified as a financial advisor but hated it, started an Open University course (still unfinished 10 years later), got married, started swinging, split up, went travelling, had a series of failed relationships and then contracted HIV. Now, she has decided to sit still and write a book. “Finally, I have identified the things that I want to do. It was difficult to narrow it down,” Tinsley says. “I’ve had too many experiences. I’ve been plagued by an inability to find what I want. When it doesn’t work out, I want to move on — I damaged myself by running away. Wanting too much was the root of my problems.”
Then there is the extreme example as personified by Susan, (not her real name), a DJ, who travelled through her twenties, thirties and forties to the most exotic, dazzling destinations. She met fabulous, exciting people and partied in the world’s most decadent clubs. But she got the fear, and at the age of 45, came home to suburbia to live with her parents. She was a caged animal, with no job, no capital, no boyfriend, no prospects and no purpose (save looking after her ageing parents). When she finally answered the call of reality, she chose the ultimate escape. She committed suicide by injecting her diabetic mother’s insulin.
A close friend of hers says: “It was tragic in the truest sense. She had spent years trying to lead an exciting life, then realised that along the way, she had missed out on lots of the things most other people do — normal things that make them happy. I think she just found it very hard to re-engage with the ordinariness of the world.”
Yeppies, you have been warned.
