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When Sharon Hyman was a little girl, she couldn't wait to grow up. She felt sure adulthood would be "one long Burt Bacharach summer," she says - glamorous, cool, exciting and sophisticated.

So she waited. And waited. And waited.

At 45, she's still waiting for that Bacharach moment.

"That's when I realized that there are early bloomers, there are late bloomers, and then there are what I call neverbloomers: those of us still waiting for our grown-up lives to kick in," the Montreal filmmaker says in her new documentary, Neverbloomers.

There's a bit of neverbloomer in most of us; we carry the memories of our past selves wherever we go. So the insecure 13-year-old girl still lives in the brain of a confident chief executive officer; that suave-looking guy commanding the attention of a conference hall still sometimes feels like the skinny nine-year-old who was always picked last for baseball.

But Ms. Hyman has a feeling that she could be the poster child for neverbloomers: "Still single, never married, no children; still living on the same street for 20 years; still living in the same apartment; still taking the same bus."

She wondered, did she miss something? Some secret adult decoder ring that everyone else got when they turned 25?

So she decided to seek answers on camera, in a film subtitled The search for GrownUphood. She answered questions from The Globe and Mail - by e-mail, because in true neverbloomer fashion she says she feels too inarticulate in speech - about growing up, blooming and withering.

From an outside perspective, lots of people would say you've "bloomed" - you're a successful filmmaker. Why do you, and so many others, feel like a neverbloomer?

I spoke with hundreds of people from all walks of life about the topic of grown-uphood and was shocked by how many related to the term neverbloomer. They would say, "That's me! I'm a neverbloomer! I just never had a name for it!" Usually suggesting that, in some way, they feel like imposter grown-ups and/or don't feel like they've bloomed.

I think, in general, many people's expectations for how they would (or "should") feel as a grown-up contradict how they actually feel on the inside.

As children, we have these notions about what grown-ups are like - powerful, capable, etc. And then it is somewhat disappointing when we become grown-ups ourselves and realize (as I explain in the film) that grown-uphood is like one endless high-school experience. ... All the same fears that you had in high school, all the same preoccupations and insecurities - they never go away. They just keep repeating themselves over and over again in every work situation, at every cocktail party, with every new encounter.

... Perhaps neverbloomers are redefining what "successful grown-uphood" means by choosing paths that deviate from the rigid ones previously [prescribed].

What are the benefits of, as you put it, wearing your inner child on the outside?

I think that being genuine with people allows them to feel comfortable about being open about their own fears and insecurities. So I think with the appropriate people, it can lead to true intimacy - when we dare to share who we truly are and not just who we think we ought to be. On the other hand, as I say in the film, "it's all so confusing, because society always tells you to get in touch with your feelings and when you do ... no one wants to hear about them."

Do friends and family get frustrated at your neverbloomer ways?

I'm not sure people see me that way. Don't we all think everyone else has it together except for ourselves?

What is so liberating about the film is discovering that so many of us feel like "imposter grown-ups" on the inside, regardless of how we appear on the outside. I remember someone on television once saying that we are always comparing our insides with other people's outsides. What I love about my film is that it allows viewers to finally compare their insides with other people's insides - and realize that most of us are struggling to become the grown-ups that we had hoped to be.

There's sort of a trend of adults acting like children - hipster dads riding their skateboards to parent-teacher conferences. How is being a neverbloomer different from people who cling to the "coolness" of youth?

In my mind, there is a huge difference between people who cling to their youth and neverbloomers. In many ways, the two groups are actually opposites. Peter Pan types don't want to grow up, while neverbloomers in a way wish that they could either feel more grown-up on the inside or at least fake it better on the outside. Though your example is interesting, because one trend I have observed is that men who don't feel like grown-ups tend to feel good about it, while women neverbloomers tend to feel bad about it.

What surprised you when you started interviewing people about neverbloomers?

That almost everyone related to the topic. Most of the people I spoke with appear very capable and hold really responsible "grown-up" positions in life. For example, not being a parent myself, I assumed that all parents naturally feel like grown-ups on the inside. Wrong!

... I was also surprised by how much people have to say on the topic and how eager they are to discuss it. Perhaps this is the start of an important dialogue in which we attempt to answer the essential question, what does it truly mean to be a grown-up? Perhaps grown-uphood needs to be revamped and redefined - and neverbloomers are leading the way.

Are you intimidated by eight-year-olds? Do you furnish your home with your relatives' castoffs? Take the neverbloomer quiz on Sharon Hyman's website: sharonfilms.com/quiz.html.