# When Did You Start To Feel Old?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-start-to-feel-old/79051>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [August 31, 2001, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-start-to-feel-old/79051 "2001-08-31T01:37:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2001, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-start-to-feel-old/79051/41 "2001-08-31T18:24:35Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by AbbySthrnAccent \*  
> \*\*Ok Katie, That was funny. Yep that was it, that’s the day Beatle and I became intimates. \*\*

There _must_ be an Abbey Road pun in there somewhere. I’ll keep looking for it.

Back to the OP. I know it’s cliched, but after I hit 40 and went through a few stressful interludes (moving, house renovations, working for a start-up in a downer economy), things started to hurt. Ibuprofen became my friend. And possibly because of the ibuprofen, so did various acid reducers and peptide blockers. I never really believed it, but it is pretty much the case, after 40, various unexplained aches and pains pretty much just become a way of life. So do various unpleasant medical procedures to make sure that these aches and pains are benign (but still unexplained).

Oh, and I am effectively invisible to any of the fairer sex under, say, 35. And I briefly subscribed to Rolling Stone magazine a while back, but except for the Jennifer Anniston cover, found nothing of interest in it whatsoever.  
Screw it, just roll the cover back over my sepulchre and let me get back to napping.

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**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2001, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-start-to-feel-old/79051/42 "2001-08-31T18:54:02Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Clothahump \*  
> \*\*When I passed into the third phase of sexual activity for men:
> 
> 1. Tri-weekly.
> 2. Try weekly.
> 3. Try weakly…
> 
> I used to chase (and catch) the young hotties all the time. I don’t anymore. They can outrun me and besides, I might have a heart attack. What’s worse is that these days, I’m afraid I might not remember what I’m supposed to do if I caught one. ☹ \*\*

🙂 So from 1 to 2 you’re actually doing better, I mean from once every three weeks to once a week.

[/nitpicking]\*

I echo the idea that I feel old when I think all pop music sounds the same now. And that Mount St. Helens erupted 20 years ago.

\*OK, so I double-checked [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) and it turns out tri-weekly is acceptable for three times a week. Now I really feel old, as I do whenever the things I thought I knew so well are never exactly right. And I forget the rest. 😉

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**Author:** ![Corrvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbce88/32.png) [@Corrvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corrvin)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2001, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-start-to-feel-old/79051/43 "2001-08-31T18:57:19Z")

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I was helping someone set up their internet connection software. One of the boxes said “check here if you do NOT have touch tone service.”

The chicklet (15? 18? Who knows?) I was talking to said “What do they mean touch tone service?”

I said “You know, like phones with buttons, not the rotary phones.”

“What’s a rotary phone?”

I felt really old for about thirty seconds, then it dawned on me that perhaps she was just really, really clueless. Then I felt better.

Corr, who is 26–and a half!

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**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2001, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-start-to-feel-old/79051/44 "2001-08-31T19:58:30Z")

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It’s all my students’ fault.

There was the Friday none of us felt like doing any work, so I let them write pop song parodies. I didn’t recognize a single one.

And then there was the time somebody did a report on music censorship, and I realized it was _news_ to them that Tipper Gore had anything to do with parental advisory labels. _Everybody_ knew that when I was a teenager, but of course the Clinton administration had been trying not to call attention to it for eight years.

All of them come to college knowing how to use e-mail and the Internet, something I didn’t fully master until I was a junior. OTOH, most of them aren’t very comfortable with the printed word. And they think a 5-page paper is _long_. Wimps.

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**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2001, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-start-to-feel-old/79051/45 "2001-08-31T20:07:53Z")

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Turning 30 and 40 were both easy, but for some reason 35 was the killer birthday for me.

Now I only feel old whenever I remember that my doctor is younger than me.

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