Yeah, you’ll understand a lot better when you get older. I always thought lying about your age was stupid until I turned 36. I used to do online dating and being older than 35 means an automatic drop in the number of matches you find. Many guys put 35 as their max age (and I understand why, they’re still thinking about having kids someday) and it’s frustrating that a single number makes you invisible.
This year, I just turned forty and I’m trying hard not to be sensitve about it but, geez, I’m forty. Shouldn’t I be a lot more accomplished by now?
When I turned forty, I fell into a great depression for basically the whole year. It didn’t help that a lot of women on the dating sites basically write a man off when he turns forty. “Ewww!!! Creepy Old Man!” I was getting that from 35-year-olds.
These days, though, I’m in a lot better shape: out of debt, pursuing a new part-time career, getting in better physical shape, and socially in a better place. I say to people that I’m where I should have been socially in my late twenties, but with more experience.
In many parts of the gay community, over 30 = might as well be dead. As much as I’ve tried to avoid that mindset, I find myself not wanting to admit that I just turned 32.
The first is that in life, there is a general progression of events for most people:
Graduate HS, Go off to college (if that’s your plan), start your career, do the 20-something post-college thing, get married, have kids, etc, etc.
As you get older, you’re supposed to change and progress from one stage to the next. There are certain milestones you are supposed to hit around certain ages. If someone hasn’t hit those milestones or has not progressed in their life as fast as most people, it is most noticable in their age. If they are significantly older than those around them, it may feel that they are behind or haven’t accomplished anything.
This can be more pronoucned in people who are in industries or live a lifestyle where the window of opportunity closes rapidly as you get older (ie actors, models, athletes, wannabe trophy wives, etc).
This may be a very specific issue related to certain careers, but I once asked a coworker (I’m in the legal arena) why she wouldn’t tell people her age. This is a woman who was probably in her early 30s. She said that part of the problem is people will assume an awful lot about what you have (and haven’t) accomplished because you didn’t go straight from college to law school. They assume you tried something else and failed at it, or you just couldn’t make up your mind, and that people treat you differently because of it. She’s not the only future-lawyer I’ve run across who has said that to me, so I have to believe there’s truth in it.
I imagine this same stigma may apply in other professions as well.
My Grandmother’s father used to say, “A woman who will tell her age will tell anything.” Of course, she was likely to tell anything, anyway, and the saying doesn’t say anything about lying, but she used that as permission to outright lie about her age when she couldn’t avoid the question.
She scratched her age and date of birth off of my Dad’s birth certificate. Yes it was only a copy, but it was the only copy he had available. She lied to doctors about her age. I think it was very much fueled by the idea that a young woman is considered to be more valuable than an older one. Although by the time she was telling the doctor she was 86 when she was 91, it was probably just a habit.
People have thought I was about 22 since I was 16. They’re still doing it, and I turn 26 in a month. I really don’t much care, and I suspect I’ll continue to not much care in the future.
My grand life plan is to continue walking around like I own the place until I croak, in hopes that the Sophia Loren Effect will kick in and everyone will be so busy drooling they won’t even think to ask my age.
I’m 46. I’m sensitive about it because my weight loss makes me (in my opinion) look older than I am. I’m hoping to fix that at some point, but for now, it bugs me.
I’ve also discovered that socially, women over about 45 suddenly become invisible - especially to males near her age who seem fixated on 20-somethings.
I had someone guess my age when I was 13. They thought I was 27 :eek:
I’ve been holding at 27 for the past 30 years.
Works for me. Plus I think the creeping weight gain since I reached 35 is filling in any incipient wrinkles. Works even better for me!
My dad becomes extremely emotional and bizarre every birthday (and not in a good way). You call to wish him a happy birthday and he’s weeping and talking about what a rough time it is, that is when he’s not lashing out about how no one loves him. Happens just about every year on his birthday… truly bizarre, I have no idea what is setting him off, I guess only his therapist (ha! if only!) knows for sure. I’m so over taking it personally.
Note: my father has a sucessful and very interesting business, travels the world, holds a Ph.D, has had two books published, and has many other accomplishments under his belt. Underachieving is definitely not the problem, unless he had plans to win the Nobel Prize.
I’m thinking this is probably a good idea regardless of your age. It’s like talking about how much you make. If you’re older, people may think you’re the weird old guy, if you’re younger, people may think you’re an inexperienced kid. When I meet someone who’s in a senior position at 25, I don’t think “wow, this guy must be brilliant”. I think “what the fuck is wrong with this company that they would give a kid with no experience that much responsibility” or “whose nephew is he?”.
Women have a tougher time with age because, quite frankly, there are a lot of guys who are just into a woman for her appearance (which, unfortunately, rarely gets better with age). The men who have a tough time with age are the ones who are self-conscious because the 24 year old women who they are fixated on now think of them as an creepy “old guy”.
