# For the Older Ladies **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 15, 2002, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858 "2002-12-15T06:18:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mallen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mallen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mallen)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/1 "2002-12-15T06:18:22Z")
This ties in to the drinking on Saturday night, and a vanity post I read earlier. Do you ever look in the mirror and see yourself, agewise as you are now, and wonder wtf happened? There are days I look and I’m quite chuffed with my appearance ready to tackle the world, and then there are days, where I see every line, every ugly feature, and I wonder how I thought I was hot. If anyone has and are willing to admit to this, what’s the best cure…besides more beer? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/2 "2002-12-15T14:41:12Z")
I don’t drink, but… Friday I really looked at myself as I was washing my hands and noticed that those lines in my forehead were looking more like gouges. It had been a stressful day at the end of a stressful week and I went in and asked one of my underlings, “Hey, are the lines in my forehead usually this deep or am I just stressing?” She looked at me like I’m crazy. Big effin’ help. ---
**Author:** ![jenex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71e660/32.png) [@jenex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jenex)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/3 "2002-12-15T17:14:19Z")
Well, I’m only beginning to see proof of aging on my own appearance, a gray hair now and then, some little wrinkles, and the urge to shake my fist at teenagers. I sometimes look in the mirror and think I look great, then I’ll look and see exactly the same thing but think I look terrible. I’m sure it’s my mental attitude at the time. I see the same thing in my female friends and family members; they’ll complain that they look bad one day when all I see is the same women/woman who has always been there. The “cure” is to rise above self doubt…easier said than done, I know. ---
**Author:** ![Arden\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/4 "2002-12-15T17:22:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Do you ever look in the mirror and see yourself, agewise as you are now, and wonder wtf happened? All the damn time. Cure? Hell if I know. Acceptance, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/5 "2002-12-15T17:28:13Z")
I’m a 49-year-old guy, and not trying to be particularly gallant here, but I’m finding ladies around my age (with graying hair, and other signs of aging) to be very attractive. Maybe not as consistently as I found women my own age when my testosterone levels were higher (i.e., out of control), but I’m surprised by how little my perceptions of female attractiveness is affected by age. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/6 "2002-12-15T17:33:36Z")
[hijack] I’m finally starting to get a few grey hairs in my beard, and my emotional reaction to seeing them there was along the lines of “far out, I’ve truly arrived at middle age, I’m getting my first grey hairs!” Who among you women folks has looked forward to your middle (and/or old) age and enjoyed its arrival? I already know it’s a very gendered issue, but there must be some for whom old people held a fascination when you were young, and for whom the notion of growing old someday has always been a pleasant anticipation? [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Anahita](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9a28c/32.png) [@Anahita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anahita)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/7 "2002-12-15T18:06:56Z")
Just today, we were at my aunt and uncles and they were videoing all of us (mostly my toddler) to send back home (to Iran). Later on in the evening, they replayed what they’d taped and I thought it was my mom on the couch and not me (she wasn’t there at all). Yes, sadly, I do wonder ‘what the hell happened to me.’ ☹ ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/8 "2002-12-15T19:07:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Who among you women folks has looked forward to your middle (and/or old) age and enjoyed its arrival? I didn’t for a long time, but now it is nice to have two teenagers capable of a great deal of independence. Plus it was a great thrill to see their newbie adult personas emerge. Only now, at 42, can I contemplate _grandma-dom_ with some amount of pleasure. I hated my gray hair at first (I have a skunk streak) but I’m used to it now and I don’t color it or anything. What’s mind boggling is that I’m beginning to resemble my Dad :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/9 "2002-12-15T19:48:06Z")
I have been blessed with bad eyes! If I throw my eyes completely out of focus and just barely glance in the general direction of the mirror, I escape some of the terror. From time to time I treat myself to a glycolic peel or something else to perk my face up a little. Maybe someday I will get tattooed baby-pink lipstick so that I don’t scare myself as much in the mornings. A good haircut and a new “do” help too. I am fifty-nine now. Every decade has become more relaxed and happy. And being a grandmother is worth every age spot and wrinkle God can give me! I’m just grateful that my looks don’t make children cry. I knew that I was really getting older when I watched some clips from the late seventies of Walter Cronkite on the CBS news and thought to myself, “I wonder why I never noticed before that he was so handsome…” ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/10 "2002-12-15T21:04:25Z")
I don’t worry about the gray hair (aka my natural highlights) – I saw the first ones when I was 23, so I don’t take it seriously as a mark of age. (Plus it actually looks nice with my dark-brown hair.) And most of the lines really _are_ laugh lines, dammit! What’s been interesting is noticing the same thing **AHunter3** has, on the opposite side of the heterosexual divide. Richard Gere, who I dismissed as a pretty boy 20 years ago, is looking damn good these days. Ditto for the way-too-yummy George Clooney, who I remember as “okay” from the first year of “Roseanne.” Most of the young stud muffin hearthrobs of today seem impossibly callow – I’d give names but I can’t tell any of them apart. Most of my crushees are more or less my age. (BTW, Hunter, thanks for your words – it’s good to know not all the men my age are out looking for a hardbody midlife crisis bit of arm candy…) ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/11 "2002-12-15T21:05:48Z")
Damn, it was **pseudotriton** – a thousand apologies, oh gallant gentleman! ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/12 "2002-12-16T01:23:35Z")
If I share some of his tastes and opinions openly, can I keep some of the accolades? ---
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/13 "2002-12-16T04:27:23Z")
I chime in with a yeah me too Somedays it seems as if my face is gonna sag right off… other days I look and think Damn I am lookin great for almost 40! Maybe its the 6yr old keepin my young while makin me feel old hahaha its the lines and wrinkles and swollen joints in my hands and fingers that are really bothering ( I never thought I was that attractive when I was 20ish anyway)… ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/14 "2002-12-16T06:54:53Z")
I am enjoying getting old. Well, in every way except my body starting to break down, that is. I am free to dye my hair any colour I like, I am wearing what I damn well please, not what is fashionable, I never wear anything uncomfortable just for the look of it, I don’t care about what other people think of me, and I have nothing to prove to anybody. I feel like I have never been as self-confident and happy as I am now staring down the barrels of 40. It probably doesn’t hurt that I’ve had grey hairs since high school, so that was no biggie for me. I have noticed in the last little while that I don’t think the signs of age on people are unattractive at all. It’s like I’m _more_ attracted to them because I recognize that these are people that I can have good conversations with because they have a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience that makes them even more interesting than younger people. (A broad generalization, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/15 "2002-12-16T07:08:07Z")
> [@](#): > > _twickster wrote:_ > Richard Gere, who I dismissed as a pretty boy 20 years ago, is looking damn good these days. Ditto for the way-too-yummy George Clooney, who I remember as “okay” from the first year of “Roseanne.” Most of the young stud muffin hearthrobs of today seem impossibly callow – I’d give names but I can’t tell any of them apart. Most of my crushees are more or less my age. I always have liked the mature look in men, I must confess. Sean Connery is dreamy at age what? 70-something? I’ve been going through a major film fest lately for some reason. I have been watching way too many movies featuring several actors who are now in their 40s, 50s and 60s. (Tommy Lee Jones and Tom Berenger, moving into Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Steve Martin, and who knows who is next!) I just saw a movie with Tom Berenger when he was in his 20s. Damn, he looked too young, too skinny, and while still a handsome devil, just…_half baked_ or something. Same goes for Tommy Lee Jones. He was nice looking when he was younger, but he still looks fabulous today. Those wrinkles do nothing bad to him at all. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/16 "2002-12-16T11:49:58Z")
The confidence I have now at 36 is so much better than the hot bod that I had 16 years ago. I’ll take that any day. ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/17 "2002-12-16T12:42:22Z")
Staring down the barrels of 40 ain’t nothing compared to looking at 50. 40 was great! Am 48 now, and went through my sorry little self-absorbed mid-life crisis last year. Can totally relate to looking in the mirror with horrified disbelief. Don’t have any grey hair but sure do have the sags and wrinkles. Gravity sucks. 🙂 However, I have reached acceptance, and enjoy good health, a good marriage and kids who are growing up and spreading their wings. Can’t imagine doing Botox or anything else,it seems silly and just puts off the inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![ultress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7c8e57/32.png) [@ultress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultress)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/18 "2002-12-16T12:57:39Z")
I’m 46. I have no qualms about it. There are a lot of attractive, single men my age and older out there so I’m not lonely. I look at what the younger women have to deal with today and no way would I want to be younger. It really is true that you can do as you like without caring what someone else thinks when you get older. Appearance and such are much more important to younger women. At my age, I don’t worry so much as long as I know that I’m making the most of what I have. I’ll never look like I did at 25, but I can still hold my own with the 40+ ladies. We don’t do so bad. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/19 "2002-12-16T13:07:24Z")
So **AHunter3** , how _you_ doin’? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858/20 "2002-12-16T13:11:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by twickster47 \* > \*\*Damn, it was **pseudotriton** – a thousand apologies, oh gallant gentleman! \*\* 1,000 "that’s okay"s. And it’s really honesty, not gallantry. But thanks for the credit anyway. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-older-ladies/142858.md?page=2)