Anytime anyone mentions anything remotely “old” makes me think they’re a victim of stunted growth, unimaginable lack of curiosity, and deliberately stupid.
“What’s a LP record?”
Why don’t you read a fucking book, you goddamned idiot. Not my problem if you spent your youth chasing pokemons or whatever instead of investigating the recent past.
So, pretty much some any time some child asks me about something they should have already known about, had they been more studious or adept.
Then why no cake ?
Here you go …
Being out of step with the times is my personality, so in that sense, I’m ageless.
What makes me feel old is noticing how very many of my friends are now dead. They are piling up.
I don’t feel young when I notice that I am far fitter than my contemporaries, since I’m still capable of things like mounting a horse from the ground, bucking hay, and hiking ten miles (although I’m about as tired after ten as I was after 20, when I was young). I feel lucky. After a certain age, you know that something vital wearing out is just a blink away – your teeth, your long-suffering organs, your mind. I am grateful for every good-enough year.
A friend of mine once said (I’m not sure if he was quoting someone) that “maturity isn’t about being serious all the time, it’s knowing when to be serious and when to have fun.” I think that is somewhat in line with your motto.
I think if you don’t “behave youthfully” (go out, do stuff, take care of yourself, stay fit, stay reasonably current with trends and culture. hang out with friends) at some point you will feel so out of touch with these things that you will feel old long before you are actually old.
OTOH- I recall the OP starting this thread where he has no career to speak of, no savings, no assets, no real understanding of financial matters, no kids, and is finally in a stable relationship at 40. I would suggest that one reason they might feel “old” is that most 40 year olds would tend to be a lot further along in life at that point. It’s one thing to not have your shit together in your 20s. Usually by their 30s, people start to feel the passage of time in that you don’t have all the time in the world to figure stuff out.
IOW, you don’t want to work yourself into old age. But you also don’t want to be the guy hanging out at the high school / college parties years after graduation (so to speak).
Same for me. And it works wonders. And is not only not fattening but even slimming. Yaay!
Shame about what that says for our partners, but they seem OK with the deal. 
It’s always midnight somewhere. You can go to bed whenever you want. That’s sorta the geezer version of “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere; time for a drink! 
”
FTR I went to bed at 9pm on NYE because that’s when I got tired / bored. Had nothing to do with celebrations other folks were having elsewhere.
Because they posted that on the 31st and you’re reading it on the 1st? 
'Zactly.
Well, i’ll have my bloody cake back then thank you very much ! 
With me it’s mostly the number (60). My beard has been gray since my forties, but that never made me feel old. One of my students recently told me that my hair looked old but my face looked young. I can still run every other day; my cardio isn’t what it was in my early thirties but it’s still pretty good. It takes me a while to recover if I push myself, so I try to avoid that.
My partner and I are both 68, I’m older by a few months. She’s silver-haired and I’m barely grey at the temples. A couple of years ago, before her double hip-replacement, I was pushing her wheelchair around a nearby lake when an elderly asian woman walked by going the other way and said, “Good son!”
“I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me, and it’ll happen to you, too.”
– Grandpa Simpson
We spend a lot of time with my wife’s parents and aunts and they are OLD (late 70s to mid 80s). They all live in and around this small town where my wife grew up. They never go anywhere or do anything and my wife’s parents are in terrible physical and mental health. And all of them are bitter and out of touch with pretty much everything.
Hanging out with my wife’s family makes me feel young(ish) because it makes me acutely aware of the youth I have left that they are stealing from me.
In contrast, my wife’s cousin in his 60s or even my dad, an 80 year old widower are a lot more youthful.
There is old and then there is Army old. There were a lot of road miles on this body from my youth and it’s showing. At least I get a monthly check from the VA to make it sting a little less.
Last month I was at the department Christmas dinner. They invite the retirees there. I’m now one of the old guys even though it’s only been a little over a year since I retired. I was speaking to the newest hire. She was two when I got hired. I was 30 when I started. That makes me feel old.
I did marry someone 11 years younger than me. I don’t know if that’s supposed to make me feel older or younger.
You’re robbing the cradle, Dude! My mom was 13 years older than my dad, and it worked out.
Great summary and an all too common story.
Perhaps said another way …
The life they didn’t bother to live has now left them behind.
If I was 30 it would feel like a big difference. At 57 it doesn’t feel like much of a difference.
Here’s something to make me feel old. I woke up and my knee is killing me. I did absolutely nothing to hurt it yesterday
I’ve had what I call a barometric knee as far back as my late teens. A massive sudden drop in temperature and I’d feel intensely arthritic.
Speaking of legs, does anyone else do that thing where if you bend over to pick something up, one leg swings out like a yardarm for balance? I definitely, certainly don’t…I usually remember to not let it happen.
It is my “bad” knee which is marginally worse than my other bad knee.
Agreed.
My GF who may become a serious LTR is 14 years younger than I: 52 vs 66. We don’t have a long history together yet, but we’ve seen the difference matters some but not a lot. More in stage of work life and disposition of extended family than in physical condition or attitude. But if we’re together when we’re 70 & 84 it’s going to loom larger than it does now.
Said another way, a numerically big difference is qualitatively small in midlife, while a numerically smaller difference is (or readily can be) quite qualitatively larger at either end of adulthood.
I’m in my late 40s and had “LP records” and 8-tracks, too. But I feel the same way about people who purposely refuse to be aware of anything in modern times (and some people here wear it like a badge of honor). Of course I grew up knowing about music and film and culture from before I was born (we even learned about some of that in school!), so I have no patience for the mindset that pretends the world began when you were born. But it’s annoying to me, as someone who actually did chase pokemon in adulthood lol, when people bring up “new” slang or bands or whatever that were sometimes old news back in 2010 or even 2000 and purposely pretend there aren’t meanings or uses of words newer than the 1800s and so on. Some of it comes off like people who would be proud leaders of clubs that only admit old white men and blame rock music and the devil’s weed for miscegenation.
… and which quit advancing when you (any you) were 22.
Preach it, bro!
Yeah, exactly.
My folks married when dad was 40 and mom was 20… THAT was terrible for everyone involved, especially since he was all about old-school traditional masculinity while she was an upstart young feminist go-getter (who earned more than he ever did, had a ton of social and business success vs his shut-in lifestyle, etc). There was so much fighting, screaming, cup-tossing, cheating, separate bedrooms, more dishware-throwing… ugh. Thankfully, I had friends’ families to model healthier relationship dynamics.
That marriage fell apart not a few years in, but they reluctantly, barely stuck together till I turned 18. I wish they hadn’t. Then they finally divorced and each remarried to someone closer to their age and personality, and both are much happier now (and still friends, somehow).
I suppose had they been 70 and 50, it would’ve been less dramatic, but 20 years is a pretty big gap however you spin it, crossing huge chasms in the societal culture at large and also technology (which often affects culture). Ten is much more reasonable.
Now that I’m his age when they married, I can’t imagine dating – much less starting a family with – some 20-year-old. Not only is it vaguely creepy, having a conversation with one feels like talking to a kid. But hey, maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad about my lack of retirement planning 
My own GF is barely a couple years younger, and we share the same values, similar backgrounds, etc. Her parents also had a rough marital history. As a consequence we both try to avoid that in our own relationship, instead trying to communicate, cooperate, and compromise well. We don’t really ever fight about anything, just talk things through calmly and fairly and work out a mutually beneficial solution.