Add me to the consensus. Early 50s, feel like I’m 35 inside my head.
Contributing factors (beyond the basic psychological denial): I had children late; they’re both still pre-teen. Also, I uprooted my life and career and relocated from the US to Europe several years ago, which in many ways felt like a reset to my adulthood.
I think about this gap in identity and self-perception a lot.
I had a wake-up call a while ago. We were at a party where early 70’s music was being played. Some ‘old’ guy next to me was singing along and knew all the words to all the songs. I thought that was amazing since I perceived him to be old enough to be into big band era stuff. We got to talking and it turned out he is one month younger than me.
Ouch.
I’m not sure I can pin down how old I feel, but it seems wrong that I’ll be 70 on my next birthday. When did that happen??? I suspect part if it is that I haven’t started turning gray yet and I don’t have all that many wrinkles on my face. Good clean living, I suppose - so when I look in the mirror, I don’t see a face that’s almost 70. Maybe I’d put my perceived age in the 50s?
On the other hand, after a day of toddler-sitting my grandson, I’d swear I was 102 or so!
20% is about right for me. I’m 45, but my mental image of myself is mid-30s or so.
My born-in-1940 mother often comments about how odd it feels, to be the same age as old people. I’ll have to ask her what age she things of herself as.
(her conversations with those old people often include the line “Man, I wish I was still your age”, followed by an exchange of actual ages and the realization that the person who said that is actually younger than Mom)
This is a more erudite version of how I would describe my mental age. I’m 58, but mentally I feel like I’m in my early to mid 30s. I know I’m old enough to have the responsibilities of an adult in their 30s, but I don’t feel like I’ve ‘matured’ any more since then. I don’t feel ‘old’. I’m constantly caught by surprise when I catch my reflection in a mirror or window and think for a split second “who’s that old guy who looks kind of like my dad?!?”
Holy cow! I was going to say exactly the same thing.
I’m 70 YO, and at least once or twice a week my wife comments (lovingly) that I’m really 10 YO. Even my physical therapist commented two days ago that I acted and talked much younger than my age.
I’m impulsive, I buy toys and knick-knacks and get bored with them easily (NOT cars and boats…literally toys and gadgets), I’m outspoken but not rude, I love weird movies, and I’m generally responsible but not stodgy. Part of this might be that I’ve sort of glided through life…good things happen to me and I’ve been very lucky. I never ran a business. I don’t have kids myself. One might call me a Peter Pan, but I truly don’t believe I have the negative traits normally associated with PPs.
TL;DR: Me, too. 10 is the best age.
Incidentally, I see old timers wearing VFW hats or veteran stuff, and think “WWII vet.” Then it dawns on me, “Nope, those are Vietnam vets like your dad.”
62 - I feel old. Certainly no younger than 62.
I was always physically active, and pretty strong and “tough.” Played rugby, did martial arts, ran marathons, biked centuries. Now I have to think about it to swing my leg over my bike, and I feel creaky throughout my legs whenever I get up out of a chair. We are going skiing soon, and I really don’t know how well that will work out.
It is sobering to realize I may not have more than 10-20 years of quality life to go. Just a change from even 10 years ago. When I was in my 30s-40s, I was the parent of school-aged kids, and conscious of my future career. Now, my kids are all out of the house, busy with their own families, and I’m just counting down to retirement. I find myself less interested in the news, feeling increasingly irrelevant. I am not pleased at how dismissive I am about so much of modern culture - music, film, technology - but I am. I think I used to be more open to new developments.
Of course, comparing myself to others my age, I’m definitely in the top quarter in terms of health, so I have that going for me. But I definitely don’t think of myself as any younger than I am.
One of my favorite quotes is from an old baseball legend, Satchel Page. He asks,
“how old would you be if you didn’t know what how old you were?“
Today is my 45th birthday. I guess I feel somewhere in my 30s though. I still feel like I am young enough to get in shape, and my best career days are ahead of me.
I’m not ready to be middle aged just yet.
My take has been different. I’m 60 but I’m just not my grandparent’s 60, which is what I was expecting. I’ve got the mindset - I still scoff when I see an autobiography written by someone in their 20s - but don’t have that feeling that I should be sitting quietly in God’s Waiting Room, waiting for my name to be called. I’ll keep doing what I want, and St. Peter can leave a voicemail.
Oh - and for you “younger” folk - I was in the best shape of my life at age 40, and din’t think myself at all old until I was past 50. The last couple of years the aging seems to have picked up speed.
Until my knee started bothering me, I felt pretty good for someone my age (75). I have no major illness that I’m aware of, have never had surgery nor treatments for things like cancer, and still have most of my hair. The knee will cure the lack of surgery, but that’s a good thing, as I really hate not being able to get around easily. I still drive, don’t have memory problems, don’t drink to excess and have the vitals under control. My wife and my cat both love me, as do my kids.
Living in a retirement facility actually makes me feel younger. There are a lot of folks here in their 80s and 90s, and at least one who is 100. A number of them have to use walkers, canes or wheelchairs.
I think that I have come to the realization that I’m actually a geezer now, and that my days left on this earth may now be counted in years instead of decades, but otherwise I think I’m doing pretty good.
From the original article:
The picture changes when there’s more variety: A 2021 meta-analysis of 294 papers examining subjective-age data from across the globe found that the discrepancy between chronological age and internal age was greatest in the United States, Western Europe, and Australia/Oceania.
Asia had a smaller gap. Africa had the smallest, which could be read as an economic sign (poverty might play a role) but also a cultural one: Elders in collectivist societies are accorded more respect and have more extended-family support.
“Could it be that feeling younger is actually dysfunctional and no longer helping you focus on what’s going on? That’s the more complicated question,” says Hans-Werner Wahl (69 in real life, 55 in his head), a co-author of the meta-analysis. “A lower subjective age may be predictive of better health. But there are other populations around the globe for whom it is not necessary to feel younger. And they’re not less healthy.”
She said “48”. Which would be believable, except it means I’m catching up with her.
I am 65 in my head and pretty much always have been.
I’m 40.
My mother is 90 and acts like she is about 40. Her hearing is pretty bad, and she cannot eat a whole restaurant meal, but she lives on the second floor of her duplex, going up and down the stairs just about every day. I think she knows she is kind of old (a woman at the store paid for her groceries and gave her a twenty because she dresses, um, practically and does look old), but she has only slowed down a little. Of course, losing several of her buddies in the past decade cannot have helped.
Yeah my sense is that this represents our negative stereotypes of “elder” and how that can’t be me.
But it is not new: my wife’s grandmother had a line about how she was always surprised to look in the mirror and see an old lady. My wife one morning quite a while ago asked how she ended up sleeping with a middle aged man. She’s eight months older than I am.
I’m 63 and feel that by definition that’s how old I feel. 63 just ain’t old now, it’s often young … but to me “old” is defined as older than me, and “young” as younger than me. There’s just lots more young folk than there used to be. That said I do see many my age who seem much older than I feel. I identify as my age but I also identify as younger rather than older. If that makes sense. No major health issues probably helps with that.
I’m 47. Physically I feel about 47. Mentally, mid-20s, I’d say, but not quite as quick on the draw. I definitely don’t feel like someone squarely in middle age. Emotionally, I’m definitely much more mature than at that age, and feel like someone in their 40s who has actually learned a lot along the way, in terms of being more caring, empathetic, and also giving less of a shit of what others do and think. But my overall mental outlook is somewhere around 27 years old.
Wait till you get to le like me (well, fortunately, no one is like me). I have had my 29th.birthday more times than all my other birthdays combined.
I’m an old youngster.