62 and 30. And you didn’t ask but anyone much under 25 is a kid; or could be depending on my mood.
I’m 41. I felt young until diagnosed with cancer at 34, so that’s my benchmark.
72 and people in their 40s are young to me.
Dennis
I’ve never seen that used as a guide to “ideal mate”. (It wouldn’t work, anyway: following your method, your ideal mate’s ideal mate would be 25, and they wouldn’t be interested in you.) It’s a rough guide to the minimum age below which some people think the relationship looks creepy – in other words, people following that rule think you shouldn’t be dating anyone younger than 36; but older would be fine – you could by that rule be dating anyone up to age 102.
70 / 40
Under 30: Young
30-70 : Middle aged (early middle, middle-middle, late middle)
70+: Old
This is a big middle. This big middle has gotten bigger as I’ve gotten older. It’s going to get even bigger pretty soon I think. But it’s still a middle, right?
I don’t feel old. Also I took an online test and I have a mental age of 10-1/2 (and I’m a psychopath, INXS, Ravenclaw, and genius).
I am 50. I consider 30 to be the upper cusp of young. A lot of people when they turn 30 feel like it’s a turning point; ipso facto, QED.
- I feel the flower of youth abandons us some time in our mid or late 40s.
I’m 42. I don’t know what the upper bound is for “young”, but based on my data point, it must be at some age greater than 42.
Expanding out to other data points, my mom is 79, and still crossing things off her list of “things to do while she’s still young”.
I think that might have been a bit of a whoosh.
In other words, the “ideal mate” is defined as the youngest one he can get away with without being creepy.
I’m 46 and the oldest I would consider “young” is 35 and that would be more of a “young adult” than “young”, full stop.
18-30 Young and/or Young Adult.
31-35 Either Young Adult or Adult depending on your point of view
36-40 Adult, full stop, no additional qualifiers.
41-50 Either Adult or Middle Aged depending on your point of view
51-64 Middle aged, full stop.
65+: Whatever word you’d prefer to describe yourself.
This is pretty close to how I perceive it, although I skew the brackets slightly higher (with the cuts at 35 and 75 instead of 30 and 70).
When you do it this way, the middle isn’t any larger than the young, and if you assume unusual but not record-breaking longevity it isn’t any larger than the old either.
It seems like most people squeeze the middle and either have a long youth short middle aged and (perhaps) long time being old (depending on lifespan) or have a short youth as well and thus could be characterizing well over half their life as “old” if they live a long time.
I’m 68 and I consider generically young to be under 30. My niece, nephew and nephew-in-law are mid 30s, though, and although they’re all quite mature and “grown-up” they still seem like kids to me.
And I do think what “old” is has changed a bit over the years. I can remember looking at people in old photographs from the early 20th C. and being shocked that they were of people in their 50s and 60s. They looked like they were in their 80s. Also, reading books written in the late 19th-early 20th C., you’d hear people in their 50s and 60s described as quite elderly and frail. I would use that kind of description more for people in their 80s and 90s.
I’m turning 30 in two weeks. Guess I’m not young anymore eh?
I’m 66.
I’m noticing travelling is rather more difficult than ten years ago, stairs the same and putting up with morons far more so.
I’d guess around 50 as the end of not thinking about hip replacements, but the young would be under 25. Bastards.
I’m over 60 but I don’t feel chronologically old. I have a very satisfying and frequent love life; not a single physical limitation; and no restrictions on the things I enjoy (which include a lot of physical activities). At the same time I definitely feel a more proximate upper limit to the time I have left, given the things I still want to do.
For me you are young if the calculus of time remaining does not enter your considerations very frequently. Under 30, I think.
But you are not young at any age if physical limitations keep you from doing what you want to do.
Shortly before I turned 30 I decided that 30 was the dividing point. I thought then and still think that at age 30 you can no longer blame your shortcomings on being young. If someone were to complain about a person age 29 not having settled down enough, I’d point out that said person is still in her 20’s (and thus has the excuse of being young). I wouldn’t say that about someone in his 30’s.
But at what age you’re still young does depend on the context. It seems to me that when someone dies, there’s 2 things that are often said: 1. He was taken too soon, and 2. She lived a full, rich life. I’ve never quite determined when the cutoff it, but I think those age 69 and younger are in the “taken too soon” group, and those 80 and over are in the “full, rich life” group. For people in their 70’s I avoid making either comment.
It has been a long time, but as I remember it, 25 seems like the cut-off for me. Before then, I was still focused on school and trying new things. Older than that and daily life started interfering with getting ready for the future. Older than 25 I knew more answers to issues that confronted me. I was often wrong, but I had the attitude that I was old enough to have confidence in my (still somewhat shaky) ability to cope. Besides, I was lucky enough to get married at 24. 
I remember when I realized I was older than most of the women featured in Playboy. That made me feel old.
(pardon the de-zombification)
I remember when I realized I was older than most NHL’ers. That made me feel old. (55)