Poll: what's the worst part of getting old?

The real worst part of getting old: Getting old alone.

You forgot:

Increased tolerance for aging, balding male singer-songwriters.

The real worst part of getting old: Getting old alone.

― Back up the lesbian canoe (Laurel), dinsdag 10 mei 2011 17:44 (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

;_;

I know it shouldn't be. But the prospect frankly scares the shit out of me.

Damn, I meant to include an "Other (please explain)" option.

waking up at night to pee

That's a good one. I knew I would forget a bunch of these. Guess I should vote for loss of memory.

Is that a getting old thing? I started doing this in only the last year but I didn't realize that's why. Damn.

Hangovers.

Reduced libido is actually kind of a relief.

I just thought I was drinking to much diet coke in the evenings. :(

i have five of the things on this list and i'm 26!

old

Growing hair where you don't want to grow it

I wonder about this one a lot. Like, why do old men grow hair in their ears? Is there some sort of reason for this? It's kind of baffling. Also, gross.

none of the above

"not reduced libido" wd be the answer

I tried to do a handstand for Beeps the other night and nearly broke my neck. Who knew your body could forget how to do handstands?? I need yoga classes.

Most depressing thread ever.

I'll let you know when I really am old.

Never been able to do handstands.

other, death

Increased tolerance for aging, balding male singer-songwriters.

― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 10, 2011 11:44 AM (9 minutes ago)

oh FUCk, I have this symptom and I am 23. life is too short :-S

xp

yeah "steady approach of death" was maybe my number 2

"Other (please explain)" option: I'm getting old without anyone else who can remember my body/self when I was young. There's no one to be the keeper of sweet memories of/for me; once my younger self is gone, she may as well never have existed. Shared with no one = wasted? Feels like it.

Somehow the fact that *I was there for those years doesn't matter? I don't know why I don't matter.

Well damn. Annoying, uncomfortable and embarrassing things which are going to keep getting worse for the rest of your life: the poll.

Ho hum.

lol

i'm actually sort of looking forward to losing libido.

stfu

tolerance for aging balding singy-songwriters is kind of one of the better things about getting old, or at least not giving a shit about bollocks youth cult punk values and what musicians look like and other misguided young people stuff

only if the aging baldy singer-songwriters aren't boring.

cancer, arthritis, risk of addiction to prescription pain meds, dementia, death

I'm 36 and voting DENTAL. I started flossing regularly at about 30 but it was too late. Things have been going all to shit the past 3 years.

Oh my teeth started going around age 20. Forget that.

yeah Alfred otm but the singer-songwriter slide into schmaltz is part of a more general thing:

if you don't watch out as you get older you become prone to this particularly intoxicating state of wistful, sentimental, nostalgic melancholy which is *about* the extent of the pastness of your own past, its irretrievability, your mortality, friends who are dead, love affairs that are long gone etc.

it can be a beautiful feeling to just embrace and let it happen, but it can also turn you into a sap and a bore if you aren't careful, because it rests upon a loss of curiosity and interest in what is happening now and what is to come in favor of what already was

only if the aging baldy singer-songwriters aren't boring

well yeah but name me a genre that doesn't apply to. i reckon most people who consciously drift into "old people music" probably liked some awful guff when they were younger too

worst part of aging is regretting thigns you haven't done imo.

Losing libido or otherwise is all very well if you lose it at exactly the same rate as whoever you might be sharing it with.

I started flossing regularly at about 30 but it was too late.

Oh no... (31, hate flossing.)

other, death

― thomp, Tuesday, May 10, 2011 11:55 AM

The ones that have started to show themselves to me:

Losing hair where you don't want to lose it
Growing hair where you don't want to grow it
Graying hair
Eating/Digestion problems
Memory problems

The first two in tandem are, at this point, an unbeatable combo.

(Graying hair is pretty awesome, tho.)

They're not the worst part of aging, but all these new* moles on my face are really pissing me off.

* arrived in the last five years or so

Going with hearing here, which didn't hit me until last year. Specifically it was a Mastodon show, but I'm guessing it was straw-camel's back thing. Already noticing myself asking people to repeat things more often. Oh well. Overall I feel good physically, so so far I'm not complaining. Definitely losing hair on top, but that doesn't bother me.

the best thing about getting old is that you can enjoy being uncool

Went to bar full of hipsters last night, looked around at busy groups of cool kids, sat alone, read book, felt not a single twinge of discomfort. Thought: WHY DID THIS TAKE ME SO LONG, THIS IS AWESOME.

haha exactly!

Last two posts totally otm.

Hi, old person here (50).

Hasn't happened at all:
Losing hair where you don't want to lose it
Deteriorating hearing
Deteriorating vision
Graying hair
Papery skin/loss of elasticity in skin/wrinkles
Slower reflexes

Right, I was going to categorise the list but it seems they are mostly not happening as yet.

So, yay me, I guess.

What's not on the list:

The idea that 100 years ago is something that actually exists on film. and that you can see things from 50 years ago that look like they were filmed yesterday.

Some other stuff that might depress you (i.e. people not around anymore, let's put it that way)

Then again, it's sunny, there are people around that you can have a laff with, also that the idea of being old is not something you have to subscribe to nowadays. Back when I was a kid, people of 20-30 would dress like they were 50-60. Nowadays, it's the other way around.

ya but you were secretly cooler than them in that scenario so it doesn't count xp

Additions?

Increased tolerance for aging, balding male singer-songwriters.
Nope.

The real worst part of getting old: Getting old alone.
Less alone now than I've ever been.

OK, when you say old, where is the dotted line?

x-posts It's totally liberating and awesome and I think it happens, in part, because you realize that so much that you maybe once considered cool is just dumb bs.

unless you were reading 'the girl with the dragon tattoo' or 'twilight' xp

looooooooool

Went to bar full of hipsters last night, looked around at busy groups of cool kids, sat alone, read book, felt not a single twinge of discomfort. Thought: WHY DID THIS TAKE ME SO LONG, THIS IS AWESOME.

― Back up the lesbian canoe (Laurel), Tuesday, 10 May 2011 16:17 (6 minutes ago) Permalink

Were you at Harefield Rd? I think I saw you.

Voting for Moles and other lawn care issues

lol no. Un P.

Another bad thing: Walking around with a picture of yourself at 25 in your mind, then passing a mirror and facing reality.

The young people don't ask you for after work drinks anymore.

Binge drinking over 40 doesn't look the same as binge drinking at 23.

Having to listen to 25 year olds say "I can't believe how old I am!"

Listening to 23 year olds talk about high school and their parents.

I defintiely don't need any more moles than i already have, thanks.

Is it true that Un P is a good pick-up joint? Everyone says that but I never see evidence. But then again, I am old, thus invisible.

A good thing though is thinking your getting old and then having something remind you that you're still pretty young in the whole scheme of things. That's a nice feeling.

The worst part about getting old are those pesky kids who keep knocking down my fence.

Having to listen to 25 year olds say "I can't believe how old I am!"

lol.

Un P was a good pick-up joint years ago, no clue now. I bailed when it got wall-to-wall crowded and it started to feel like a place where ppl from LI went to experience "Williamsburg."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbUnfvq7uzQ

think i mite go vampire or somethin when i turn 30 or make sum kinda infernal bargain idk ill find a way out

Yeah, the crowd keeps me away. But even so, going to a bar alone and not giving a shit is one of the great pleasures of life. Though it's a different thing for guys, because usually no one will talk to you if you're not famous or average-looking, whereas a single woman will inevitibly get chatted up.

yeah, solo bar attendance is a much different proposition for women i think.

another thing that sucks about age: when people stop going "wow, you don't look it" after they've asked you how old you are

lol

Worst thing is probably losing the habit of enthusiasm or wonder. Look at the kids on the subway who are so excited to just be looking out the window, and are fully present.

Or age spots, those are pretty stupid too.

yeah, solo bar attendance is a much different proposition for women i think.

It is. It's mostly fine but I had a really awful experience a couple months ago that I think has put me off this for a while. I don't really like bars much anymore any way though so I'm not too sad about it.

think i mite go vampire or somethin when i turn 30 or make sum kinda infernal bargain idk ill find a way out

― Lamp, Tuesday, May 10, 2011 12:34 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

I once had a batshit crazy real estate agent smoke me up and then tell me how she had stopped aging and would teach me how I could do so as well. Should have taken her up on the offer tbh. I've just decided I'm going to age backwards so next birthday will be my last. Ppl still routinely tell me I look a lot younger than I am so I'm ok with all this. Might be singing a diff tune in 10 years though.

btw that real estate lady also believed in shape shifters and had painted portals to other worlds all over her bedroom out of which she conducted her side job of dealing weed. I didn't end up renting any of the places she showed me but I got a really amazing and bizarre experience out of that afternoon.

metabolism slowdown, tho tbh that's been hitting me since i was 21

Always been goin bald so fuckit you get used to it early.

The real worst part of getting old: Getting old alone.

yarp. Where is "watching friends and relatives dying ahead of you"?

Honestly though for me the worst part about aging is none of the above, it's wondering how I'm going to fit in all the things I still want to do/experience.

"Memory problems" is the one that concerns me the most.

the worst part of getting old is when your friends and relatives start buying you mugs and plaques that say shit like "I cannot see, I cannot pee, I cannot chew, I cannot screw" and expect you to laugh it off and display it on your desk b/c as an old person you are supposed to have a good sense of humor about your decline and death. whereas in reality your cackling is just a way of drowning out the rumblings of mortality (or possibly just indigestion) and you find the stuff totally offensive and disturbing.

http://i52.tinypic.com/309hshj.jpg

if aging gracefully means turning into Maxine, then I don't think I'm really cut out for this aging thing.

think i mite go vampire or somethin when i turn 30 or make sum kinda infernal bargain idk ill find a way out

I'm going the cryogenically-frozen-severed-head route myself. You know, like Walt Disney, or Hitler.

Serious answer, though- definitely the missed opportunities/things not done part. I still can't walk by colleges without dying a little bit.

absolutely clean glasses is otm though: I can more or less deal with failing body parts or at least take the sting off physical decline by telling myself that I was never much of athlete or hottie to begin with). but when I start losing my memory and losing my very sense of self, that's when I'll start getting really depressed about it all. being able to live a rich Walter Mitty-ish inner life is one of the great luxuries afforded to us at even the worst of times, and when that's taken away, there's nothing left to look forward to, really.

"Memory problems" is the one that concerns me the most.

― I'm at the combination pizza butt and taco hell (absolutely clean glasses), Tuesday, May 10, 2011 12:54 PM (18 minutes ago)

otm

physical decline doesn't faze me all that much. I've never been a fine physical specimen, so run of the mill wear-and-tear (moles, wrinkles) isn't going to spoil anything worth holding on to. decreased mobility is somewhat more alarming, but even then I can just say fuck off to the real world and lead an exciting Snoopy Dog existence in my imagination. but when my memory starts to fail and I start losing my very sense of self, that's when I'll have nothing to look forward to or escape to, and life isn't really worth living at that point.

Lack of respect / people treating you like a child or fool / shitty pension after life of work.

I'd like to second absolutely clean glasses (multiple xposts) w/r/t memory (but really just cognitive functions in general). I've already kind of accepted the prospect of my body falling to pieces, and every new wrinkle and mole will just be a reminder of a physical fragility that I've almost always been able to shrug off. even chronic illnesses and reduced energy/endurance can be somewhat bearable when you have a sharp mind. sore? grumpy? bedridden? just start daydreaming that you're a World War I flying ace or a world-famous heart surgeon, and right away you feel a little better. but when dementia hits you and you're no longer able to retreat to a fantasy life or at least fall back on a lifetime of memories, that's when loses its luster completely. my mind is very sharp now and I'm hoping it'll hold out for at least another 50 years. I mean how will I contribute to ilx, for instance, if I just keep making the same post over and over without even realizing it? a scary thought, indeed!

I thought about asking if you meant to do that.

"Memory problems" is the one that concerns me the most.

^this

I'm just imagining the effect memory loss would have on something as trivial as my ilx posting. making the same posts over and over with slightly different wording each time until people start tactfully OTMing you but eventually killfiling you because you're stuck in a boring rambling loop and you have nothing to contribute to the conversation. what a terrifying thought! and of course the consequences will be 1000X worse in real life.

voted "Memory problems". I'll explain later.

Not to derail but I think the whole "women and their bodies" and the valuation of youth thing is at work in my ideas about aging, as much as I would love to reject that BS. I feel like my younger physical self was better than I am now, the bloom not yet off the rose, fewer scars, no stretch marks, that youthful flush...the kinda shit that shouldn't be important except that if a woman isn't nubile and indistinguishable from an especially sexy teenager, she's out of "the game."

I should be happy to be out of the game, I know. If I was ever IN it! Just have this fucked-up feeling that with each year, the outside self I have to offer is less and less desirable.

well I already have mild memory problems, as aficionados of my posts have unfailingly noted.

x-post - Laurel I honestly think every woman worries about that. When I do I just remind myself that some of the sexiest women in the world are those in their 40s. I mean it's totally BS but it's what we're fed to believe and it's one of the many reasons I think aging is harder on women than it is on men. Teenagers don't know shit about shit and in the end, that's not very sexy at all no matter how taut their asses might be. You're not out of the game girl. Not at all.

voted "memory problems" before even reading the rest of the thread. sometimes when i'm speaking i'm looking for a particular word and I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER IT. i'm so ashamed of myself (i'm good with words! i read a lot!). i think it's a medication side effect, but it's a small taste of what alzheimer's might be like.

i've always had memory problems so w/e

remembering things is dumb anyway!!!

I'm in my mid 20s and I was having breakfast recently with some older people (40-late 70s), who didn't really give off an olds vibe to me, and we were discussing Harry Nilsson. At one point, I was like "He actually died when he was pretty old" and one of them was like "Oh I thought he was pretty young when it happened." At that point I started sweating internally, and was like oh fuck I should just not talk about death around people who are aging I guess, because I knew whatever response I gave would sound pretty stupid.

he was in his early 50s I think

I have freakishly good memory for a lot of things. It'll really bothering me if/when I start losing that.

I later amended it to "pretty old for a guy who spent most of his life all fucked up" but I guess they had also spent most of their lives all fucked up so that didn't help

lol

Yeah, I think that's less "50 is old to me" and more "50 is (relatively) old for a hard-living rock star to die."

There's "memory problems" and then there's the horror of Alzheimer's or other medical dementia conditions, which we lost my grandfather to in 2003 and which we are watching my grandmother go through right now. Building a lifetime of memories and then watching them, one by one, disappear, along with your cognitive functions and your ability to retain a consistent sense of who you are, where you are, what time it is, who other people are, etc, is the ultimate proof to me that there either isn't a god or that it is so indifferent to human suffering that it doesn't matter.

My family takes shifts staying with my grandmother 24/7. My wife and I took a three hour shift last Saturday. When we picked her up, I buckled her in the passenger seat of the car while my wife folded her walker and put it in the trunk. The first thing grandma said? "I could've sworn I brought my walker with me today." That's not memory problems, it's horror.

:(

Was reading somwhere that what you might call uptake/ability to learn does decline in older people but other kinds of thought actually get more acute? And the value of contemplative time goes way up, as yr brain makes more connections with the info that's already THERE instead of acquiring new info quite so feverishly. Stuff like that.

xxxp oh lord Phil

I have A freakishly good memory for a lot of things. It'll really START bothering me if/when I start losing that.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Tuesday, May 10, 2011 2:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Apparently one of the things I don't have a freakishly good memory for is how to write in my native language.

Probable worst thing about getting old: Realizing all those things about old people I've laughed about are not funny at all.
Probably best thing about getting old: Finding new things funny.

Just have this fucked-up feeling that with each year, the outside self I have to offer is less and less desirable.

This is true for everyone though--it's just part of aging. Unless you date some Dorian Gray type, which could be problematic in its own way. Maybe the trick is to identity less with notions of "outside self" and "desirability"?

Also, how many times do I have to tell you that you are beautiful? *smack*

At that point I started sweating internally, and was like oh fuck I should just not talk about death around people who are aging I guess, because I knew whatever response I gave would sound pretty stupid.

Pretty sure I've told this story before, but at a family reunion a couple of years ago we were talking about my grandmother, and I said I really wouldn't want to live past 100. "Just give me 80 good years, let me lay down for a nap and not wake up." One of my aunts got kinda mad at that -- "I'm 80 years old, do you think I should go lay down and die today?"

i think longevity is overrated (although i hate it when my heroes die too young). we're living longer than our ancestors ever did -- the paleos, those exemplars of perfect health, still died by age 40 or w/e. old age and its attendant problems are putting a strain on society, including doctors, social services, affordable housing needs. not that the aging should all just put guns to their heads, not at all, i just wish health gurus would stop touting "longevity" as this thing that we should all aspire to unquestioningly.

one of the major societal elephants in the room right now is that the baby boomers (i.e. humongous population spike post wwII) are in their 60s now and it's the younger generations' responsibility to manage that.

not that the aging should all just put guns to their heads, not at all, i just wish health gurus would stop touting "longevity" as this thing that we should all aspire to unquestioningly.

otm. Edward G. Robinson's death in Soylent Green seemed like such a nice way to go.

Worst thing is probably losing the habit of enthusiasm or wonder. Look at the kids on the subway who are so excited to just be looking out the window, and are fully present.

Or age spots, those are pretty stupid too.

― Virginia Plain, Tuesday, May 10, 2011 11:43 AM Bookmark

This especially. Think about how intense childhood memories are because it's the first time that you experienced anything. I remember going to see movies at the old Breckenridge Theatre, and being dazzled just by the little lights going down into the dark on either side of the aisle. Now, I'd be all w/e, just lights leading the way to the fire exit.

I don't think there's much you can do to recapture any of that wonder. I recently saw a YouTube video taken from the International Space Station, and about halfway through it, realized, boy, I'd get really fucking bored of that shit after a week.

Those of you concerned about memory loss, what sort of memory do you have in mind? Like, where did I put my keys, or the loss of old cherished memories, or what? I guess I'm in denial because that's not really a concern of mine. I'm not much of a pictures/nostalgia guy though so that may be part of it.

I think the worst thing would be having a small moment of forgetfulness and thinking "is this the first step on the way to years of drooling screaming dementia?"

haha PP otm

i think i've been maxine since like fourth grade

My grandmother also, more often than not, thinks that my uncle -- her 69-year-old son -- is my late grandfather. As a result, she also can't understand why he lives in a different house with a different woman, and often refers to her as "that whore of your grandfather's."

lol maxine

My grandmother slightly lost her mind towards the end of her life, thinking Mexicans down the street were cutting her phone lines and electrocuting her cat through the floorboards. It really upset my dad to see it all slowly unfold.

But now, when he sends me screencaptures of "Lost" and asks in amazement if this really came from the Air France crash, I wonder to myself, when do I grab the reins away from this guy?

Hopefully, my kids will be out of grade school by the time they have to pull power of attorney on me.

I think the worst thing would be having a small moment of forgetfulness and thinking "is this the first step on the way to years of drooling screaming dementia?"

^^^this

my mom got rid of all her aluminum cookware because of ^^^that. That was 15-20 years ago. She is nowhere near drooling screaming dementia.

increased sense of perspective that leads to an understanding that everything valued throughout youth is merely a series of distractions from a short and insignificant existence

I do sort of like the increasing disinterest in owning physical objects.

No "Not being able to take care of oneself," no credibility.

The real worst part of getting old: Getting old alone.

― Back up the lesbian canoe (Laurel), dinsdag 10 mei 2011 17:44 (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

Among my many reasons for trying to save as much money as I can for retirement: In my dotage I hope to marry some old indie rocker who spent his prime earning years garnering more rave reviews than dollars, and regards my assets as outclassing other women's beauty and charm.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XdhjVARVFqI/SpN1MDEpDNI/AAAAAAAAACI/DO2rg-Hjync/S240/harold-and-maude.jpg

I dunno I'm 31 next month and people still usually think I'm 19-23. Just not aging much! Out of all the stuff on that list I'd think hemorrhoids would be the most annoying so I voted that.

Hemorrhoids aren't so bad because, hey, at least it's not colorectal cancer.

I voted eyesight, as i'm hoping photography will keep me sane when i retire.

I'm not thinking about the rest of it yet.

I keep seeing this thread title and singing:

The worst part of getting old

Is dentures in your cup

I do sort of like the increasing disinterest in owning physical objects.

Hahahahaha as if. Grandma is OBSESSED with knowing where all her shit is at all times. Of late, she's convinced that someone is trying to steal her milk glass collection. She told my aunt that a girl broke into the house the other day to take some and she had to rip it out of her hands.

This especially. Think about how intense childhood memories are because it's the first time that you experienced anything. I remember going to see movies at the old Breckenridge Theatre, and being dazzled just by the little lights going down into the dark on either side of the aisle. Now, I'd be all w/e, just lights leading the way to the fire exit.

I don't think there's much you can do to recapture any of that wonder. I recently saw a YouTube video taken from the International Space Station, and about halfway through it, realized, boy, I'd get really fucking bored of that shit after a week.

OTM

I feel like there are a lot of people attempting to do this online with pictures and posts about the beauty and wonderment to be found in the little things (like on blogs/tumblr etc.). Of course it's true that there is and I try to appreciate these things as much as possible but sometimes when adults try too hard at this I find it obnoxiously cutsey and phoney because no matter how great and beautiful they are most leaves (or whatever) are still just leaves that you've seen thousands of times before. IDK. That probably doesn't make much sense.

I feel like there are a lot of people attempting to do this online with pictures and posts - by "this" I meant attempting to recapture that wonder.

That wonder is the best thing about hanging out with little kids imo.

Wonder is a thing that it's better if u talk about it less, imo.

I feel like there are a lot of people attempting to do this online with pictures and posts - by "this" I meant attempting to recapture that wonder.

You know who does this? OLD PEOPLE.

voted for "deteriorating hearing" - it was between that & "Longer times to recover from injury or exercise," which I experienced hardcore when I took a knee at Deathfest a few years back and the bruise didn't go away for a fuckin month and a half & still experience when exercising, etc- but honestly I do not hang w/the "aging sucks" crowd. I'm smarter than I used to be; the tools I needed to accomplish what I want to accomplish aesthetically (breadth of knowledge, insight, technical skills) I now have; I have a clearer understanding of the things I value and greater empathy/understanding regarding the values of others; I'm less likely to fly off the handle IRL (I am still an asshole on political threads). I value the things I value with a full sense of what they're worth to me, a 360-degree sense of how and why they mean what they mean to me. That feels tremendous. I do wish my ears weren't showing signs of wear, and it's painful to learn that my body's ability to absorb punishment must be respected, and I wish I could pull all-nighters with nothing but adrenaline & hormones. But the world becomes more wonderful for me, not less, every day. Having been around longer, I've had longer to count up more of the wonderful things: I can name them, describe them. I survived all those years when I hoped to die young and had to pose like I knew stuff; now I know stuff and wouldn't waste a minute worrying about whether it's apt to die and this age or that. Growing older is a sign that in the lifelong battle between dumber me & smarter me, smarter me can claim at least this one victory.

x-post - lol, yes

x-post

Well, there are ways to recapture some of that openness, such as yoga or meditation, but it's a lot of work just to try to get back to a sort of "natural" state, whereas, yea, just hanging out with kids is a good way to experience it vicariously.

aero OTM

voted for the wide-ranging "Reduced energy levels"

I don't think the lack of wonder is because we're adults. Most of us grew up in a generation where you were encouraged to learn/become familiar with everything as quickly as possible to not appear stupid because that's really the worst thing that could happen. This will get you well jaded long before adulthood IMO. My mom didn't grow up like that and she is still fascinated and delighted by new people and places. She: 'Everybody has a story to tell!' Me: 'Ugh. TMI!' She: 'Look at the magnificence of that view!' Me: 'I'm pretty sure I could improve it in Photoshop.' etc

xposts ahoy

also my greatest fear - too much time to reflect and contemplate. fuck that! I set my life up very carefully so my brain will never be unoccupied for long enough to contemplate or reflect on anything.

The real worst part of getting old: Getting old alone.

― Back up the lesbian canoe (Laurel), dinsdag 10 mei 2011 17:44 (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

And this: don't you think that everyone gets old alone, whether you do it alone alone, or next to someone else?

Well, "getting old alone" is just shorthand. My sadness is rly about not having someone else who is a co-repository for memories of younger days. Friends and family, yeah, but not for the more intimate stuff, plus friends and family all have their OWN lives and you can't take them everywhere you go over the years like you basically do to your spouse/partner, to remind you who you are in all kinds of environments where you don't have normal reference points.

Hmm, can't you be your own repository? Isn't the alternative staying with someone while growing apart?

saddest ilx thread ever?

Like more and more years of my life are happening w no one to witness them except me, and I am an unreliable narrator, I guess, and not enough for myself to feel anchored to anything. I fear spending my whole life this way! It will be like I never existed anywhere except in my own thoughts!

Who needs to be a repository?

voted for 'Deteriorating hearing' -- i feel like i could at least theoretically deal with a lot of the other things fine if i'm still able to sit around and listen to music as much as i want, without that a lot of life would be less tolerable

hmm, maybe if i get alzheimer's, hipsters will pay me a lot of money to be a demented old folk artist. i can design sufjan stevens album covers.

over the last 5/10 years i have experienced most of these in varying degrees except dental problems, reduced libido and hair loss. I've thinned on top but there's so little grey I can't complain. The libido thing is a problem cause women my age can lose interest in sex before men (an MD told me that).

anyway voting: awareness of mortality

my nails haven't thickened or turned yellow, either. thank god

what, no complimentary BEST part of getting old poll?

"outliving your enemies"

"pants up to HERE"

"able to get away with saying just about anything you want in public"

"senior discounts"

"yelling 'get off my lawn' at young whippersnappers'

"getting drunk after one beer"

"sex without birth control"

"grandchildren"

Whre is the "all of the above" options :(

Laurel, I will be your Boswell.

yr friends/loved ones start dying on you :-(

ward fowler aged 44 2/3

This'll sound--what's that word again?--tautological, but the worst part of getting old (50 in October) is realizing I won't be young again. I can't see Taxi Driver for the first time again, I can't hear After the Gold Rush for the first time again, etc., etc. 97% of the music, films, and baseball players I'll ever care about are behind me. (I figure I've got more latitude with books, so that's good.) And I tend to run that stuff into the ground, with nothing to replace it.

well, you'll never be old again either

Yes...As Jerry told George, "That's okay--it'll all be over in another 40 or 50 years."

The feeling of time running out, and the self-imposed pressure of feeling you should be making the most of each moment.

Yes this, totally. I have started to feel regret that I never used to. "wait, I'm not done yet", wishing I'd planned on buying a house a lot sooner (ie at all), regretting some of the timewasting relationships I was in, and basically, not wanting to die :/

The thing that annoys me the most is that anytime I'm sore or injured - from exercise, headache, accident, whatever - it both takes longer to recover and sets off a panic that it's some sort of horrible disease or ailment that I've avoided until now. Like I get sore from raking and other lame shit and feel that my sore shoulder equals impending heart attack.

It's weird to have so many people OTM-ing the loss of wonder - I can't ever imagine this happening. I'm probably more this way now at 37 than I was at 17 when I was a moron and didn't have disposable income and the internet. I'm constantly amazed at how many awesome things there are that I still have to learn about, and super excited that my job lets me just take random college courses for free. Plus now I have a TINY MAGICAL BOX that I can carry a hundred records on and use to communicate with everyone I know, can show me pictures and maps of anywhere in the world, and it's capable of answering any question that I have instantly.

Shakey OTM, a "best part of aging" companion poll would be good.

the thing about your sense of wonder is that it's something you don't exactly have to guard, but you do have to guard against the things that threaten it i.e. you have to not cultivate jadedness even though young cats are very keen to affect as jaded a posture as they can early on because it reads as worldly + plus when all yr peers are striking the jaded pose it's hard to not fit in; you have to stay hungry for new stuff even as you're realizing that slowing circuits are going to mean it takes more work as time progresses to really come to an understanding of the new stuff you're choosing to get into, but it's worth it to put in the extra work because you basically get to stay young forever if you do, etc. tbrr this is why when some of the young cats on ilm do their hatin'-on-stuff routine I think "you guys are seriously fucking yourselves up, strike that pose a while longer and see what it does for your feeling of newness down the line" and so on...which is v. "make that face & it'll stick that way" I know, but as far as I'm concerned is true -- if you spend your younger years cultivating an I'm-already-over-it persona, you may not enjoy the feeling you have when you actually legitimately feel over-it all the time and you miss the openness you intentionally killed.

this problem has afflicted a number of people I know is why I mention it.

Following up on that, aero -- my wife helped me come up with the list of poll options this morning, and I was updating her on this thread this afternoon when she, my daughter and I were out to eat. I mentioned that "losing one's sense of wonder" had come up, and without knowing what we were referring to, my daughter said "losing your sense of wonder isn't as much of a problem as feeling like you can't talk about your sense of wonder without getting mocked."

You have raised a wise daughter!! Awesome!!

It's weird to have so many people OTM-ing the loss of wonder

For me at least I OTMied it in the sense of the loss of wonder at the little everyday things. When you're a child EVERYTHING is amazing and new and awesome and as you grow up that inevitably goes away. You can still find the little everyday things awesome but it's different and doesn't usually inspire the pure giddy excitement that it does in kids.

I'm constantly amazed at how many awesome things there are that I still have to learn about.

I mean, this is true for me too. Absolutely. I'd sort of worry about people from whom it wasn't.

How "old" is old? My father passed away last year after a long illness but his biggest complaint until the last six months of his life were deteriorating vision and hearing. Frankly that is the part that scares me the most.

I guess it depends on how physically active you are. My dad was gardening, lifting weights and riding a bike until his last year.

The great fear is of some sort of degenerative illness, forcing an active mind to live in a sedentiary body.

Then again:

1) I was quite poorly between the ages of 24 to 28, and actually I didn't feel much like going clubbing/eating marv meals, etc. So, the mind adapts to circumstances...
2) A famous author had some sort of alzheimers (was it Doris Lessing?), her husband famously remarked that by the end she loved watching the Teletubbies. OK, that seems like horror, but it's still a happy body/mind...

It's that fear that makes people suicidal at the first instance of forgetting something that should be solid within memory (name of husband/wife/kids, that sort of thing)

Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.
Hangovers.

Naah, they were always awful, it's just that you can't remember what they were like when you were 18 (for example)...

It's weird to have so many people OTM-ing the loss of wonder

It's not really a conscious thing, it's just the way it is. I'm always open to a new film or piece of music knocking me out, and now and again, that does happen. But when I think about how (to use the same two examples) Taxi Driver and Neil Young hit me when I was 17 or 18, it's just highly unlikely that anything will overwhelm me to the same degree again.

No but there are compensatory pleasures and other ways of being surprised by joy...and recognizing it when it comes.

Absolutely. Believe me, I absolutely hate jadedness. I've always told myself that if that ever creeps into my writing, I'll simply stop writing. It's the most tiresome thing in the world.

my immediate answers today are "my knees" and "the morning after eating Indian food."

so these nails youre talking about are toenails, right?

I absolutely must expand my vocabulary.

Worse hangovers!

when I think about how (to use the same two examples) Taxi Driver and Neil Young hit me when I was 17 or 18, it's just highly unlikely that anything will overwhelm me to the same degree again.

Nothing wrong with raising your standards

Is that because now you can afford to drink more? (xpost)

When I see this thread title I can't ward off "The best part of wakin up.... is Folger's in your cup!"

Like more and more years of my life are happening w no one to witness them except me, and I am an unreliable narrator

This is the problem with people thinking fiction is like life, in which all narrators are unreliable.

I enjoy doing things in which the absence of witnesses is a plus.

Speaking of which, one great thing about being older now is that all the stupid things I did when I was younger, and all the writing I did that would make me cringe now, is lost to history--vanished into thin air, or buried in local publications that no has anymore except me and a handful of people. No YouTube, no Facebook, no internet, no permanent record.

I voted the aging skin thing, but really it's just a placeholder as the most visible sign of physical deterioration. Body betrayal, and hate that just as I became more comfortable with myself in my head, the outside no longer matches up. Having kids a bit late too, and feeling each year I waited, as a year of their lives that I will miss. Not strictly true of course, but can't help the feeling

so these nails youre talking about are toenails, right?

I've seen it happen to fingernails too, occasionally.

About three of my toenails are grievous, but no one sees em.

another awesome thing about getting older: being entitled to refer to the youth as "young cats" lol

Well, actual childlike wonder is a bit impossible to sustain--it would be strange if we all commuted to work kneeling backwards on the subway bench so that we could stare out the window beaming idiotically with excitement--but maybe something halfway between childish enthusiasm and adult deadishness would be nice? Most adults just seem so resigned and beaten down by life.

Another loss is the heady emotionality of the teenage years. It didn't seem enjoyable at the time, but it would be nice to feel so intensely about everything again . . . maybe.

i have become prone to some really annoying emotionality, particularly crying, and as a man this is pretty embarrassing. fortunately, this has a not-too-broad range of typical triggers, such as observing my kids and freaking the fuck out over how fleeting their childhoods are, and fearing/knowing that my ability to have the role that i have with them is similarly brief.

when louden wainwright's "picture" hits your player and you just cry over your kids, that's too much. plus, it adds in the category of "increased tolerance for aging, balding male singer-songwriters."

new contender

Being closer to death wins every time, and the fact that it's not an option on this poll is telling of the age and/or awareness of the person who started it.

death is all around, guys

And if you're not afraid of that, there's little else worth being afraid of.

fear is the mind killer

death is all around, guys

*throws beret*

Well, exactly! We all deny death as a matter of getting through every day. SO why freak out about things that aren't DEATH? (Apart from certain things, like waterboarding.)

tbrr "watching friends and relatives dying ahead of you" seems to be edging out fear of personal death as the worst part of getting old

Being closer to death wins every time

This is where following American politics and projecting waht the 2060s will be like provides a silver lining.

Diminishing employability

Bad as growing old alone must be, growing old in a close, loving relationship isn't perfect either. You know one of you will almost certainly die first. That thought is scarier than death for me.

Varicose veins

Actually my main problem is that I've gotten so handsome the ladies just will NOT. leave me. alone.

^^^

You are both sleek and dashing, but the worm is about to turn.

The worst part about getting old: acquiring the arithmetic skills necessary to calculate how old your grandparents were when your parents finally reached their age, then subtracting how many years they (your parents) have left.

man death is so certain I don't even see the point in fearing it, it's like being afraid of the sun

^^^

acquiring the arithmetic skills necessary to calculate how old your grandparents were when your parents finally reached their age, then subtracting how many years they (your parents) have left.

eh my grandmother's about to turn 101 and my mother is 65 so that doesn't seem so bad.

by that math I have a whole other lifetime to live coming to me

a close family friend is 95 (or maybe 96 at this point, wo), and in the past year, she's tried to stop eating, stop getting out of bed, and stop communicating verbally, though she's perfectly capable of doing all of these things. the reason she gives? "all of my friends are dead, and i don't really care to adapt any longer, i did that for 90 years." tbh, i'm on her side, and sort of wish the family would just let her die.

saw a couple items on last wwi soldier who was 110 and thought, "hmm i hope he was happy, because otherwise i rly don't wanna be that dude."

Being closer to death wins every time, and the fact that it's not an option on this poll is telling of the age and/or awareness of the person who started it.

― DSMOS has arrived (kenan), Wednesday, May 11, 2011 11:20 AM (29 minutes ago)

mmmm, probably, but speculation on how it's telling on me would be telling on the speculators. #infiniterecursion

You know, I'll sleep a bit easier once I get to the point that my friends and loved ones are dying in hospital beds surrounded by their grandchildren rather than getting run over by drunk drivers or overdosing on pills.

Dying isn't a huge fear. I just think about the kids once again. Talking to those who were minors when they lost their parents compared to those who were in their 50s or 60s when they became orphans, it really seems the latter is preferable to the former.

fwiw, I wanted to stick to the physical breakdowns accompanying aging, and almost didn't include the "fear of falling" one for that reason.

I'm okay with no longer existing. Hope it's not too painful getting there.

all the writing I did that would make me cringe now, is lost to history

Your old Graffiti stuff holds up just fine!

"Reduced energy" is the main one I'm really feeling so far - no more bounding up two flights of stairs, two steps at a time.

*throws beret*

A+ lol

Well, exactly! We all deny death as a matter of getting through every day. SO why freak out about things that aren't DEATH? (Apart from certain things, like waterboarding.)

― DSMOS has arrived (kenan), Wednesday, May 11, 2011 11:28 AM (37 minutes ago)

Every day I give less and less of a fuck about death, and more and more of a fuck about pain and discomfort. There's the telling difference between us, Kenan.

Older me is better than younger me but I think I'm not yet old enough to judge otherwise yet.

But I know the lovely unfathomableness of watching time pass, of watching my children age. I'm not sure what death is but what I fear is that important things will go on & I can never be there, & yet that is happening right now, as my children become & I am not there & can't be there & don't really always want to be there, but when you're there it is a such a glorious now: time stand still. So I know that, but I don't think that's a tragedy of getting old; it's more a tragedy of living.

i fear living to 110 more than i do death. but i think if had young kids, death would concern me a great deal more.

Very good thread indeed -- given WmC's note about the physical breakdowns, I'd be cheesed off beyond description if my hearing fully or mostly went (I'm not that thrilled with the slight tinnitus I already have but it would have been a lot worse had I not used earplugs over the years when it came to shows). On a practical note I really hope I have not inherited my mom's increasing troubles with food as she's aged, on a purely selfish note the inventors of ear hair and other such monstrosities deserve a beating, even if said inventors are only DNA and evolution.

But dementia would probably be my closest worry, if only because of what it could all eventually mean or imply. Yet I think that's also derived from my own experience, in that while I've known older relatives of friends who have suffered or are suffering from it, in terms of a direct impact on my life I really *haven't* seen it on a consistent, long-term basis.

Of my grandparents, one died when my mom was only five or so, another when I was thirteen, killed by a quickly moving cancer, still a lucid and sharp person through the end -- and those were both of my grandfathers. One grandmother I didn't see before her own passing for almost fifteen years, from when I was about sixteen or so, and I only have vague stories about her state of mind when she did. That left my other grandmother, and while according to my parents she was getting a little troubled closer to her death, a kind of fearful paranoia about things that weren't really there, I never saw that myself when I visited home.

So that leaves my parents, and they've joked over time about failing memories here and there; the physical drain has become more apparent with time, especially with my dad, still a regular bike rider but someone who tends to walk much more carefully and slowly these days -- as he told me one time, "Hey, growing old sucks!" But as noted, they've joked a bit and confessed a loss here and there about something in the past but it hasn't yet changed who they are, at least to my mind. If that does eventually happen then I'll know for the first time directly what a constant concern that might be, and I might worry more actively about myself in the long run there.

But I can't and don't know. So I wonder, wait, and go on about things.

Every day I give less and less of a fuck about death, and more and more of a fuck about pain and discomfort.

This sums me up as well as anything right now.

this thread is making me realize how young i am on the scale of ILX, and also sort of makes me sad that i probably will never have children.

actually, not to derail thread, but i've been thinking a lot recently how i really want to raise a kid at some point. think i'm going to go with a dog first, but still.

this is me too. how old are you?

My great grandmother's 10-year long slide from dementia to deterioration was a terrible thing. I don't fear death so much as dementia.

except i've started with a chameleon.

xpost

I understand the point of view from you ILMers, but I'd much prefer to go deaf than blind. I spend twelve hours a day reading and only occasionally listening to music. By the time I've gone Beethoven on everyone, I can communicate with Beeps from her arctic mansion and Hank from the floor of the Australian Parliament through text, letters and ISP Copoy.

But I'll be okay with marching through each day like a robotic exoskeleton, stepping on skulls in a silent post-apocolyptic skynet world. Long as I can read the open/closed sign at the diner.

The diner where long pig is the only meat on the menu!

I could learn Braille though. Or listen to people reading, or recorded readings. There's no braille for sound.

I think I'm less worried about going blind -- or even just having vision problems -- simply because I've had glasses since I was three or so; I'm used to the idea of something there not working as it should (eventually everyone else in my family had to start wearing them so it was kinda nice not to be alone).

There are subtitles and vibrations. Plus, I've got that iPod that's called my brain.

xp

"Sunrises and sunsets? No, I haven't seen one in years. But I did hear the Muzak version of 'Love in an Elevator' at the oncologist's yesterday."

For completeness' sake, and at the risk of needing thread to move to ILTMI --

Losing hair where you don't want to lose it -- check; male pattern baldness started in late teens
Growing hair where you don't want to grow it -- check; CURSE YOU EAR HAIR
Deteriorating hearing -- nope! The audiologist said my hearing was better than hers. So a few weeks later I went to hear Sunn O)))) play live and left out the earplugs. It was awesome! Live music with earplugs is like having sex wearing eight condoms at once (I guess).
Deteriorating vision -- deterioration is accelerating, and since I work in graphic design/prepress, it really worries me.
Graying hair -- yeah, but who cares. I do wish my beard would go ahead and go completely white.
Papery skin/loss of elasticity in skin/wrinkles -- check, but I've always been moderately homely so I don't care much about it.
Reduced energy levels -- definitely. I worry about low energy levels and think "following the fatal heart attack, an autopsy revealed 85% blockage in his heart blah blah blah"
Slower reflexes -- not really showing any signs of this, yay.
Longer times to recover from injury or exercise -- I cool down and return to my resting heart rate after doing yard work as fast or faster than I ever have, so yay.
Melanin deposits/age spots -- some; no biggie.
Moles -- as mentioned upthread, new moles on my face be pissin' me off.
Bowel/elimination problems (including hemorrhoids) -- never, hooray.
Eating/Digestion problems -- no problems to speak of. I try never to eat within 2-3 hours of bedtime, which helps.
Thickening/yellowing of nails -- nah.
Metabolism slowdown -- yeah, but that started 20 years ago, so it's hard to get wound up about it now. I plateau'ed at 220-225 lbs. and a 38 waist a few years ago, am keeping an eye on the situation.
Memory problems -- none to speak of
Reduced libido -- I wish
Dental problems -- none to speak of
Fear of falling/fear of injury/loss of physical courage -- nah, not really

i'm *eep* 26. i realized the other day that i've now been on ILX for almost 1/5 of my life.

I've been on for a quarter of it. Odd feeling, that, but I've been on the Net itself for almost half my life so hey.

yeah, been on the internet for more than half of mine. lol remembering debating merits of punk albums in aol forums in 1996.

I read Special Exits (recc'ed by forks!) and it is very bittersweet & powerful. It also gave me the frigging heebie-jeebies about my body & mind decaying. It's about the author's father & father's wife getting old & approaching death.

http://wilsonknut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/special-exits-79-001.jpg

I think some of the problems they had was just not taking good medical care of themselves, though. Like the wife goes blind because she forgets to take her glaucoma eyedrops – could have easily been prevented.

I just ended a job at a call center helping people order prescription medications by mail (mostly very very old people) & it was amazing to me how many people were so lackadaisical about their medications. They would try to order a prescription that expired two years ago (most rxs are good for a year in the U.S.). So I think just staying on top of your medial care can make a big difference in avoiding a lot of the scary things that happened to her parents in this book!

OTOH the most truly depressing thing at this job was very lonely old people who had stayed around because of being fastidious about their health care. A couple of people in their mid-'90s who detailed how they outlived all their friends and family and have been alone for over a decade. "I guess these pills are keeping me alive, but what good is it doing?" I think that kind of isolation would be the worst thing about being old. I am pretty good at quietly entertaining myself – assuming hearing/motor skills are ok enough for me to still sit & knit with some music on – but would it still be fun if everyone I knew had been wrenched from my life years ago & all I had was the specter of death to keep me company?

I've been avoiding this thread, although, as the Oldest Known Ilxor, this should by rights be in my bailiwick. I've watched many people age and die, some from very close by. Their aging all shared broad similarities, but no two aged alike, and no two suffered the same mental or physical deficits, and each dealt with it as best they could.

Dementia may be the most dismaying to contemplate, but even there the emotional response to it varied among the victims, from eruptive anger to a sort of serene resignation. Surprisingly, I've known more who took it well than those who did not. Mostly it depended on their core personality before the onset.

So, I can't say there really is a particular aspect of aging that is worst, because it is so individual a process. All you can do is attempt to age with whatever grace you can muster. The other aspects are beyond your choosing.

i'm *eep* 26. i realized the other day that i've now been on ILX for almost 1/5 of my life.

woah - ok - i'm 33 and only just getting gloomy about the prospects of having kids. how come you're feeling this way at twenty-fucking-six?!

tbf people waiting to have kids til their 30s and 40s is a fairly recent (and predominately western) phenomenon

Dementia may be the most dismaying to contemplate, but even there the emotional response to it varied among the victims, from eruptive anger to a sort of serene resignation. Surprisingly, I've known more who took it well than those who did not. Mostly it depended on their core personality before the onset.

Most interesting, and noted.

I'm not afraid of death, but only that it'll be a long time coming.

The funny part is that I've always had a disproportionate fear of physical injury, but in the last year since actually breaking bones I keep feeling more adventurous as it wasn't all that horrible.

Yeah I dont understand being afraid of death. I understand it enough I guess. It seems like the worst situation is a black nothingness which sounds kind of appealing to me tbh. Now any pain before that actual moment of death ME NO WANT

Pain is a great teacher. The problem is that it never knows when to stop because you've learned the lesson.

thermo thinwall, remember that i'm a flaming homosexual, and the whole complication that adds to having kids.

ah. i'm terrible at remembering details/usernames/band/cheese-preferences of posters here.

I am reminded, of all things, of a Tom Petty lyric. "I don't mind working but/I'm scared to suffer."

thermo thinwall, remember that i'm a flaming homosexual, and the whole complication that adds to having kids.

you can probably buy a chinese baby if you're really desperate/rich

oh no... maybe my memory *is* finally going!

xposts lol

i have broken rather a lot of bones and my family doesnt get at all why i continue to do things that involve a risk of more of them. all i can think is that they're not so bad as to merit not doing fun shit.

mom (81) just recounted a visit in the past couple of weeks by some of my folks dearest and longest standing friends. the wife has advancing dementia. she spent most of the time with my mom saying "i remember _YOU_, there was a time xxxx." one of these was "i remember you were pregnant, and you have a little boy." me, obv. but her memory is episodic and features big lapses. once, she didn't recognize her husband. trying to be creative, he called my mom and gave the phone to his wife, who did recognize my mom's voice. "there's a strange man in my house-- and i can't get him to leave.!"

so, yeah, my mom said it was the worst weekend she's had.

In so many ways, it's tougher on the caregiver(s).

most definitely.

shakey, i will probably never be rich enough to buy/adopt/artificially inseminate a surrogate/etc. i think the only option is finding an awesome lady (a good friend, most likely) who would be down to do articificial insemination and then raise the baby in some weirdo queer joint custody sitch. i know two writers who did this, and their kid just graduated from high school, and he is awesome.

Myonga: many thanks. I pray you haven't got the earliest Nerve stuff, though.

guys fyi getting old is kinda awesome in my experience

Ah shut up and comb your ears.

for me the worst part is that my issues/problems are essentially the same at nearly 40 as they were in my early 20s. i have made no progress and in some ways have regressed, making much of my life seem wasted.

ear hair is pretty wtf tho

I haven't read the whole thread. Was anyone able to explain that ish? Baffling imo.

The Straight Dope weighed in back in 1997:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/835/why-do-older-men-have-hair-growing-in-their-noses-and-ears

your nose and your ears are two of the few body parts that continue to grow and develop as you age

so, probably related would be my guess

I think that both my nose and ears are too small for my head so I am excited by this news which I think I already knew but had somehow forgotten. You may be onto something re the hair there too but idk.

i'm fucked, then.

No wonder my ear merkin business hasn't taken off.

lol

ahahaa.

"mearkin"

speaking of which, my friend legitimately thought that Helen Mirren's name was Helen Merkin, which had me in conniptions a few weeks ago.

Until like two years ago I totally thought that "conniptions" was "connipshits". I'd never seen it written down!

got one of these geezer shavers for my birthday a couple years back: "you need this"

http://blogs.smarter.com/blogs/nose%20n%20hair%20trimmer%20brookstone.jpg

I have some kickass one that has these weird attachments in case you want to trim your eyebrows (?)
it's true though, some old dudes have crazy eyebrows

(not that old yet)

http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/hpc/detail-page/B000W405SG-3.jpg

oh, i got one of those nostrims too.

i knew a guy who, in his early 20's, used to keep a nosehair trimmer in his glovebox so he could take care of that while he was stuck in traffic. (he was an astonishing combination of weird and vain that you don't see every day)

lol at the marketing materials using young guys instead of, y'know:

http://www.waycooldogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/old-man.jpg

My grandmother is 95 and pretty senile - she lives in one giant present and barely remembers what she did the day before. She still knows who I am, though and is always happy to see me. I ask her how she's doing and she tells me she always has fun. I don't know if that's because she doesn't remember not having fun or to humor me or simply because she's having fun being w/me when she answers. If that's as bad as it gets, I could bear it. I do hope her body gives out before her mind does entirely, though.

Like having young women advertising slippers, etc..

There's nothing wrong w/a little manscaping, Thermo. I usually do it the same day I'm trimming my nails or some other only occasional bit of upkeep.

Meanwhile, it's those old guys used for finding college scholarships online, etc.

i do a little too. something about doing it in traffic with that thing tho, was a touch only he could put on it.

xpost

Yeah, I hear you. It sounds as neurotic as it is vain, though, like he was trying to maximize his productivity during those fallow moments of his life that circumstances were stealing from him. Hope he never got rear-ended...

Considering the chunks I've taken out of my legs in shaving attempts over the years, the thought of shoving miniature whirling electric razorblades up my nostrils and into my ear canals is just fucking terrifying, really

the thing I dread most is: 'Fear of falling/fear of injury/loss of physical courage'.

though, I suppose due to reduced energy levels, it is possible that I won't want to do anything other than sit in a rocking chair anyways.

I am *terrified* of dying, of not existing. It would seem this is not usual and to be honest I cant explain why I am, I just like my life plenty thanks very much and I dont want to cease living it.

Perhaps when I've been crippled with aches/cancer/heart attacks later in life I may heartily change my tune.

The older I get the less afraid I am of death. I don't believe in an afterlife or anything so not existing doesn't really seem bad to me. Dying is another thing altogether since I'm a wuss and hate pain/illness etc. I guess the only thing that scares me about death is not being able to do/experience certain things I'd like to do before it happens.

Because I was not well around the age of 25, I'm more happy about each year: Still here, still healthy, faculties intact, still learning new stuff, levels of bafflement decreasing if anything...

I love existing too, but I mean, if I don't exist anymore, I'm not going to care either way at that point, right?

yes but the 'I'm not going to care either way at that point, right' part is scary.

i felt better when I read last night that Keanu Reeves' knees are bothering him.

"'chris', people say to me - 'chris, life is short! life is SO SHORT!' no it's not. life isn't short. life is long. especially when you make bad decisions."

ha!

It's a minimum of 30 years in some establishments!

Myonga: many thanks. I pray you haven't got the earliest Nerve stuff, though.

― clemenza

Nope, but I definitely read a few of 'em. I even remember a particular line from your New Order "Substance" review!

at age 36 i have arthritis in my hip and in my SI joint. FUCKING AWESOME!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

interesting results, thx voters

...now I can't remember if I even voted. I must be getting old.

Next poll: What age is Old?

damn, totally missed this thread but would've gone with memory loss, no contest.

forgetting where the good bodies are buried

:|

i've always had a shite memory. you get used to it.
it's the energy loss that i went with.

am happy to see baldness got no votes

Seeing my chest hair go gray is more of a bummer than I would have expected.

I started going grey (on my head, ha) in my 20s!

The aging thing I'm most suffering from I think is less energy, and the metabolism blowout. Hearing's fucked too but thats nothing to do with age.

man I'm falling to pieces in a bunch of different ways & places but I gotta say that getting older is really way less of a bummer than late-teens me feared. knees/joints/slower metabolism/former-tweaker-teeth-problems are a drag but really...I prefer older me to younger me in practically every way. older me is a nicer fucking guy and can see past the end of his nose. younger me can kiss older me's ass tbh

younger me can kiss older me's ass tbh

can someone photoshop this

Seeing my chest hair go gray is more of a bummer than I would have expected.

― Your sweet bippy is going to hell (WmC), Thursday, August 9, 2012 12:33 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have been shaving my head for too many years to keep track of what's going on up there, but I think this is happening inside my nostrils right now.

Not so much reduced energy levels, but aching joints. Combined with a sudden surge in energy, the results can be like the dancing contest in the final episode of Black Books.

I think the worst part of getting old is not being able to enjoy things you used to because that past time has been usurped by young people and does nothing but make you look and feel old.

pasttime

pastime

really, is it spelled pastime??

pastyime

nasty in the pasty(time)

Yeah its pastime. And yeah I agree, i hate going to say, an indie club and feeling like a lame old chancer. It blows. I'm still 21 dammit!

i hate going to say, an indie club at all at my age, too loud and young people are annoying and gross

Ha yes well, that as well.

The last few times ive gone to a goth club I've been all "jesus turn it down, and wtf is with this smoke machine bullshit and WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE". And i hated it.

Having to visit my grandmother in a retirement home on the closed second floor is depressing. Yesterday I was sitting in the communal (?) room and everyone just sat there drooling or shouting. My grand has alzheimer and parkinson. She knows who I am but otherwise she remembers very little about the day before or when, for example, my mother was born. I do feel a bit sad but then again she was a super bitch. Now she's soft and easy. But still... this is sth I would hate: in diapers, drooling and being carted off to your room by a stranger. The world passes by and you just wait to die.

Going out clubbing is absolutely the one. I'm sure it's perfectly acceptable in London to go to a club at 31, but in my hometime it's strictly for the yout'. I went to check out a little club thing above a pub the other week and felt like a complete goon every time I tried to dance.

geez I only *started* clubbing around 29-30.

Getting turned off to going to clubs/parties is a GOOD THING imo. Getting old (31) has allowed me the freedom to indulge my anti-social tendencies and now that i people no longer call me to asking 'what's going on tonight?' I have the freedom to just chill at home, read a book, play some videogames, etc. Stuff I'd really rather do!

Also, when i go out, it's a far more meaningful experience, and I'm just someone who personally WANTED to go out in a sea of people that MUST go out in order to fulfill some social contract.

But going out and dancing to choons is my favourite thing ever. Like Trayce I really don't feel like I'm anywhere close to reaching for my pipe and slippers yet. Problem is, most of my friends ARE and would much rather have each other round for a meal and a glass of wine, or they're too busy preparing for weddings, babies etc, or they're mentally ill or they're just too damn tired etc. Equally, if I ever get the opportunity to go to a club, I not only feel self-conscious about being older and fatter and less cool than everyone else, but I can't stand the braying little shits either.

maybe it's time to start dancing with a new crowd

http://mauricemcleod.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/tea_dance_o_large.jpg

what a drag it is getting old

i'm 27 and i sometimes feel like an old codger when i'm out at clubs, though less so at club clubs than at the various indistinguishable twee-ish indie nights i sometimes find myself at. heaven knows how self-conscious i'll be when i hit my next decade. after something sparked a little facebook stalking of school friends, though, i think i'm doing okay on the ageing front. sure i'm greying rapidly and my facial hair is slowly making its way up to my eyes, but i think under my beard i'd still look youthful and spry and in serious need of a real form of identification.

what a drag it is getting old

otm

-getting sleepy when I have a couple of beers :(
-wearing earplugs to concerts. I used to be tuff and now I'm like aaagggh my eeeeaaars
-teenagers wearing neon plastic sunglasses >:(

i'm going to be this person:
INFORMATION ALERT: 27 is not old
srsly ALL i did when i was 27 was go dancing and drink/drugs and go to work whatever and hang out with friends/bf!
then i went to grad school and started getting old, but all in all, ime, it takes a while and i'm nowhere near there yet. i still go dancing that's for sure.

i'm still under 40 but i know plenty of 40somethings who go dancing (to electronic music), tho they are more selective about it

Eh not really otm. I think growing old is rad.

Never really seen any ageist stuff in my time.

still rep for Growing hair where you don't want to grow it -- it's not a big deal, i guess, but i fail to see the evolutionary advantage that has led to it

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

I'm really freaked out my my flesh taking on a different character. I grab my calf and squeeze and it looks pliable and ugh I'll stop

Definitely one of the best threads I ever started.

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

this is it. mine passed relatively young, in their 60s, but everybody i know these days (my wife & all my peers) is dealing with aging/ailing parents. it's like the final step before facing yr own mortality.

INFORMATION ALERT: 27 is not old

ha, i'm well aware of this objectively, my criteria for judging myself rarely correspond with my general opinions or how i think of others. tho in the last year i've actually gone out a lot more than ever previously, while also being at grad school. i'm fighting a two-way battle between accepting that i'm young and accepting that i'm (however gradually) getting old.

despite the fatalistic tone of my last post yes WmC this thread is classic, thoughtful and instructive

yeah my mom just turned 69 the other day and my dad is 76. he's in great shape; it's harder to tell with her because of wading through endless complaints.

but there's just me, i don't live near them, and i don't have any money to speak of. and while i love my parents, i find visiting them to be unpleasant, mainly due to the hoarding. it is going to suck.

i'm 27 and i sometimes feel like an old codger when i'm out at clubs

I beg you not to waste your time feeling like an old codger before you're, say, 40. I get that it's an actual feeling - everybody does it, starts to "feel old" when their teenage years begin to feel remote - but 27 is unbelievably, super-powerfully, ridiculously young. any minute of your 27th year which you squander imagining that the wistful feeling you have is "feeling old" - man, find a way to give me that minute so I can do something properly youthful with it

right now I think the worst part of getting old is neurology staff not giving me the info I need to authorize an MRI in a timely fashion when I've been limping since mid-June. Not part of my worry list when I was 27.

under-aero OTM.

I beg you not to waste your time feeling like an old codger before you're, say, 40

Yeah I was going to say something like this. Your 20s and 30s are your freaking PEAK! Do not lament them as age. You will know actual age when it comes, trust me. That time sure as shit aint it.

Heck I'm still trying to feel ok with relative youth at 41, ffs.

At 31 I don't feel old at all, I just feel frustrated that many of my peers act as though they're getting on, and yet I can tell I'm not quite on the same level as the younger people I work with/hang out with.

20s the peak....not sure i buy that. I think it's like playing music when high; you think it's amazing and everything you do is incredible and just untouchable, but objectively, it's a bunch of wasted, self-indulgent BS. The youth culture part of the 20s, going out to parties, going to clubs, drunking/drugging all the time, "What are you doing tonight?" "What's going on this weekend?" non-stop social maintenance and all that is white noise. Nice stuff at the moment that it's going on, but yeah fleeting things that aren't real and don't have any lasting value for your life.

okay FINE, i'll be young! but also okay with ageing. one thing ilx has been very good for showing me, something that previous generations of young people probably haven't had much experience of, is that people can remain interesting and engaged and exciting as they get older. even if they're THIRTY!

Watching your parents and family get old, that is without a doubt the worst part. Not missing out on drinking a beer with a bunch of random people that are only there to drink beer and score cool points.

you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan
and the next five years trying to be with your friends again

32 is awesome. It will only get better from here.

20s the peak....not sure i buy that. I think it's like playing music when high; you think it's amazing and everything you do is incredible and just untouchable, but objectively, it's a bunch of wasted, self-indulgent BS. The youth culture part of the 20s, going out to parties, going to clubs, drunking/drugging all the time, "What are you doing tonight?" "What's going on this weekend?" non-stop social maintenance and all that is white noise. Nice stuff at the moment that it's going on, but yeah fleeting things that aren't real and don't have any lasting value for your life.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 10 August 2012 01:55 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Depends where your priorities lie really. Yes going down the pub and getting pissed all the time is pretty meaningless, but then equally so is staying at home and playing computer games. By my mid '20s I was turning my social life into a productive pastime by organising gig and club nights, using my circle of friends to promote shows &c. &c. and having loads of fun while I was at it. So it wasn't all soulless pisswalling, and certainly more productive than many other things I could have been doing.

I work with someone who regularly makes comments about being old and needing wrinkle cream/plastic surgery. (She is 28.) She asked me if I was upset when I turned 30 so I told "Nope!!" I should have said "no, it's awesome."

reduced energy levels is a weird winner to me. i don't care about that, i didn't have much energy when i was younger either!

I have grey hair in my goatee and it is really, really distressing

I might shave the whole thing off despite my wife's objections

A friend and I - who are both still under 40 and therefore young!!! - recently & independently both noticed feeling tired after concerted or prolonged mental effort. I suppose it's no different from feeling knackered after a decent bout of exercise, which isn't something you notice so much when you're younger, but it's a curious thing to suddenly be aware of.

lol djp i'm almost a decade younger than you and i have mad gray hairs in my sideburns. which i don't even mind at all because graying feels a lot less lame than having a receding hairline.

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

Yeah. It's hard emotionally because I love them and it sucks to see them start to fail in small but fundamental ways. But also practically speaking, I'm an only child and my parents live in a place that I never, ever want to live again and have made it abundantly clear that they will not submit to residential nursing care, nor will they move to Chicago to live with me. When I'ved asked what solution they propose, they respond, "Just take me out back and shoot me!" but that's not likely to happen.

i love the grey in my temples a) bc i still have tons of hair so who cares what color it is and b) i get to tell ppl the story of Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria who said "i am like a man of 70" and the story goes that he was actually like 18 and a great scholar but no one respected him bc of his age so god made his hair go grey early so that ppl would respect his opinions.

lol djp i'm almost a decade younger than you and i have mad gray hairs in my sideburns. which i don't even mind at all because graying feels a lot less lame than having a receding hairline.

I think I'm just mad because neither of my parents started going noticeably grey until they were well into their 50s

Although now that I think about it, my dad sported a boss 70s mustache up until I was about 7 or 8 and he was 40-41, after which he started going clean-shaven; maybe his facial hair started greying then too and I was just too young to notice

I am not super concerned about thinning hair/receding hairlines because I basically have shaved my head for the past 20 years and I know I look good bald

DJP I've never seen you in the flesh but you're painting a pretty badass picture of yourself

as Seinfeld taught us baldness only looks good as a choice xp

My lolcoworkers were in the car on the way back from lunch one day and one mentioned his son asked what getting old is like and his answer was "It hurts."

So yeah, aches and pains and not bouncing back quite as quickly as you did in youth.

Graying is superficial. I have scarcely a gray hair in my head and I would trade it for not being winded after going up 2 flights of stairs.

OK, not really.

I really need to restart a gym routine and I am fucking terrified to do so because I can't bear the thought of 6 weeks of gym aches before my body begins to adjust to the new reality

I keep having neat white/gray hairs but I see them in the rearview mirror as driving to work and accidentally pulling them out thinking that I have a cat hair stuck in mine.

you know you can dye your beard

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

― mookieproof, Thursday, August 9, 2012 7:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel a lot younger than I am which is some weird sort of disconnect or something. Last week though 3 separate people on the same day expressed shock at finding out how old I am so maybe I'd still doing OK looks wise. If I really start to think about it it does freak me out but most days I still think I'm 18 so whatever. Was supposed to go dancing tonight but am sick. BOOOO. I was really excited for the dancing.

I try not to put much stock in age ideas because some people seem like they're perpetually in their early 20s because:
1. They look like they're 40 as soon as they hit 22
2. They continue to wear cargo shorts and baseball caps and act like drunken 22 year olds from that age until after 40

Not to say anyone here falls into that, but it leads people to think anyone who doesn't look prematurely aged is young, or anyone who doesn't act like a moron is old, sometimes.

someone in my office just looked at me like i was taking the piss when i told them my age; so I'm feeling pretty good about it. i thank tomatoes. that said, i bet i just wake up one day looking like i've aged about 10 years and it's downhill from there.

i thought grey hair was one of the best things about ageing. i like it. silver hair. white hair.

http://img2.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/n/r/nrl6ye3le9iyyil.jpg http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/a-c/cnn.981006_bb.jpg

Grey/silver hair is the 100 percent single best thing of these options.

Bacharach still looked pretty youthful at 70, but it's hard to pull off at 84.

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

― mookieproof, Thursday, August 9, 2012 7:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― (✿◠‿◠) (ENBB), Friday, August 10, 2012 9:06 AM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

I still feel more or less good 90% of the time. Not as good as when I was 27, but that was 10 years ago. I think the external physical shell is holding up fairly well and I take care of the internal stuff by eating well and exercising regularly. It's the emotional stuff that's hard for me. Friends disappearing into parenthood, my parents approaching the age where they need to start worrying about their decline, stuff like that.

Also having fewer things in common with my oldest and closest friends totally sucks.

still refuse to believe LL isn't actually 27

Also having fewer things in common with my oldest and closest friends totally sucks.

― nicest bitch of poster (La Lechera), Friday, 10 August 2012 16:04 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes it's strange. suddenly everyone "knows what they like/likes what they know", which basically means they're not up for trying out different things, which boils down to "i'm just gonna stay in because i don't like the sound of (whatever it is you suggest)"

Don't have kids, kids.

you know you can dye your beard

I am never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER going to dye me beard unless it's some ridiculous comedy color like magenta or khaki

khaki beard = the one! but you might end up looking like mossman.

I'm kind of guilty of that! But I think a good portion of it is that I went to see a number of bands years ago, but mostly because it was all I knew to do and I knew I'd see friends there. These days, I don't care as much about seeing those people and have other things I'd rather spend my time on. Also, bands are too loud and the youth that are there to see them are obnoxious (hehe).

I was definitely guilty of the "why won't they book good bands" complaint recently, but I am not sure whether it's because I'm old and don't like the same new stuff, or because the booking is genuinely lame. I think it's partially the latter.

Youth at shows are obnoxious. I was quiet and contemplative at shows in my youth.

I actually have liked about 90% of the things about growing old :(

good bands want money. promoting makes pretty much zero money.

The first three or four decades of old age are the worst. Fifty to ninety is what I call "the impairment scenario": you're the same old you, but every day a little the worse for wear. But after ninety you enter "the estrangement scenario".

It's a whole new world. Imagine you're into fashion when you're young. From fifty to ninety you find it increasingly difficult to cut a dash because your hair thins out, your neck hangs loose, your belly goes pear-shaped; everything is the same but worse. But in your nineties there's a re-calibration, a renaissance. You find a really amazing pink tartan cover for your kidney dialysis machine. Tuberculosis, you realise as you admire yourself in the mirror, has made you stick thin. Those suits you had made up in Singapore in 1962 have come right back into fashion. It looks even better when you wear the jacket as trousers, even if you did it accidentally the first time.

Imagine you're into contemporary art when you're young. You're the sort who doesn't read the text on the gallery wall because it destroys the mystery, the freshness. Well, once your brain starts to go and you can't remember yesterday, everything is mysterious, new and fresh! Your son comes to visit: what an interesting new friend! You used to love Sherlock Holmes, but knew all the episodes backwards. Well, dig out that Talking Book, friend, because Conan Doyle has given them all new endings! And middles! And beginnings!

You used to pay lip service to Nietzsche's line about living dangerously. "Live every day as if it were your last", you said, while assiduously avoiding all actual risk. But now you're over 100, every day really could be your last.

The estrangement phase is edgy! Exciting! New! Fresh! God, I envy you for having it ahead of you! If I could live it all over again, I would. And, you know what? I can! Because I've forgotten all about it!

Today everything is upside down! It's because I've fallen out of my wheelchair in the disabled toilet and the alarm cord is out of reach, but I haven't realised that yet. I just think the cubicle had very avant-garde make-over. Christ, I love life! Live fast, die old!

Don't have kids, kids.

have kids or don't - that discussion has been done to death - but i must say having kids makes getting old more bearable ime

Grampsy my house applauds your post and salutes you, sir

Mutual Grampsy appreciation society

but having kids makes you look older, fer sure. xxpost

sorry, but downer time.

worst part of getting old(er).

finding out just how fucking endemic cancer is, despite all the medical magic of the modern world.

you hit 40+ and all of a sudden your life is full of people with cancer stories.

survival. death. chemo. surgery.

within 2 years my whole world has been swallowed up by cancer, and i just want it to fuck off.

please.

"please don't confront me with my failures/I have not forgotten them" (motherfucker)

^^^

for some people the worst part of getting old is going to be having to admit that Jackson Browne has yr number

And had it at age 16. Yow.

So long as it turns out Jack Johnson doesn't I'm good.

I wonder which one of the ILX women will be the first one to go through menopause. I suspect it will be me; my period has lightened considerably in the last few months, and the day of the month it falls on is starting to shift around.

^ask me in about 3 months.

but having kids makes you look older, fer sure. xxpost

― kate78, Saturday, August 11, 2012 3:18 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is absolutley true. I see it most obvoiously in fb friends from HS who had kids in their early 20s. They look so much older now than the people I know who haven't had kids or had them later. I mean it makes sense. Parenting, for all it's joys and great points, is surely a very stressful and tiring thing.

i really really am not sure i want kids. like ever. i don't hate children - some of them are alright, delightful even, but I did spend a good deal of my late childhood/teenage years with screaming kids (my brothers and sisters) around me. I know the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, cos I was there every step of the way and I just don't know if I could do it again (plus the added responsibility of it being, y'know, my kid).

feeling lately like having (teenage) kids takes years off yr life #tradeoffs

eh, people who don't have kids don't live any longer, they just look less weary while living

x-post - M Coleman - My mom credits having a kid late in life for keeping her young in spirit.

she's right! and ty i needed to hear that today

slouched around for 30 years, now i have to concentrate on posture constantly or else my back hurts after like 5 min of sitting/slumping.

is there a companion thread for the best parts of getting older?

I think for me the people who had kids in their early 20s look "older" probably because they tended to be very different people with different values than my close friends with kids who all had them in their late 20s or later.

To stereotype rather broadly, the early 20s people were the ones who were never into fashion / art / music / other markers of youth culture and seemed like they just couldn't wait to have kids, buy a house in the suburbs and settle into a pair of Dockers.

Like they're parents first, and everything they do revolves around that fact and their lives seem to be much more centered on whatever their kids whims are, whereas the people who had kids later incorporated kids into their existing lives as adults.

is there a companion thread for the best parts of getting older?

― Thanks WEBSITE!! (Z S), Monday, August 13, 2012 11:45 AM (30 minutes ago)

It was discussed but never carried out iirc.

Agreeing with joygoat that there's also a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy thing going on. A lot of people who have kids at a younger age are fulfilling the life checklist and are going to put more stock in the supposed signposts of aging. To an extent, people *look* older because they dress or act old, and that might just mean they're out of touch with art/music/fashion/anything that's not polos and cargo shorts

Like they're parents first, and everything they do revolves around that fact and their lives seem to be much more centered on whatever their kids whims are, whereas the people who had kids later incorporated kids into their existing lives as adults.

In all seriousness, this post needs to be enlarged and framed and placed in prominent locations all over the universe

A friend of ours (48?) just recently had a baby, and is currently leading a safari tour of east Africa *with her baby*. As per joygoat's post, her child has not stopped her life.

she's 48 and she had a baby??
this makes me feel better about everything

I could be a year or two off, but yep

Is that in American years or Australian?

My friend turned 100 yesterday and today he told me he doesn't remember yesterday, if he had a party, what he did etc... His memory loss started this year. Up until this year he was really with it, mentally.Now he is not even as active as he was last year because his memory loss confuses him and he likes staying close to home. He lives in an old, giant house and told me he likes to stick to certain rooms and doesn't wander around. I was sure he'd make it to 100 with all his wits about him.

It's the worst when you really start to believe someone is invincible, and then you discover that they're not (worse for them, obv)

Yeah my grandad, for all his other illnesses, has been sharp as a tack right into his 90s, still able to be his wifes primary carer, do all the vege gardening, learn and operate a Mac and do word processing on it etc. Juts this last year or so he's started to forget how to do simple things tho, and you could see the embarrasment on his face asking how to make his printer do a photocopy (it was a 2-button thing he'd done dozens of times).

Right now he's in hospital, or was last I heard - simpleish shoulder op turned into complications, as is often the case at that advanced age sadly. Havent had any updates from fam, not rly sure whats going on.

Sorry Trayce.

Only three years ago I saw my grandfather run really fast to get the phone, he was 87. It was a few months before he had a fall while doing yard work. It has left him in a great deal of pain and has really affected his quality of life. Now he seems sad, maybe a bit afraid and frustrated.

Like they're parents first, and everything they do revolves around that fact and their lives seem to be much more centered on whatever their kids whims are

My friend got some shit recently from an old old friend of his who basically told him off, said his wife and kid is dragging him down and making him less of a man. The problem was that he couldn't fly across country to his friend's wedding. He had just bought a house and has a wife and a 2-year-old at home. What is he supposed to do, leave his job and family to make his friend happy?

He recently moved out to the 'burbs but he and the misses are way youthful and the baby can point at a picture of Lemmy and say "Motorhead".

Sad indictment of our age if recognising Lemmy from Motorhead - heyday sometime back in the seventies - is a sign of youthfulness

The shock of hearing '90s grunge and Britpop, and even late-90s pop, on classic-rock or oldies stations. Nothing I listened to as a 20-something should ever find its way onto oldies radio. y'understand?

Yeah the 90s are now what the 60s were to me in high school, which seems so hard to get my head round.

For kids now in high school, the early 80s are their equivalent of like, the fecking Beatles era and that... hurts.

plus they don't remember cassettes amirite

i think you mean to say "reality bites"

few things are worse than getting excited when you stumble across the "old school jams" mix on the radio and they're playing stuff from AFTER you graduated from college (there is nothing "old school" about Ja Rule and Juvenile, you dicks)

Ha

Radio: We're going ALL THE WAY BACK... to 1998!
Me: Eat every single square inch of my ass, motherfucker *plays M83, dies a little inside*

permanently otm

Like they're parents first, and everything they do revolves around that fact and their lives seem to be much more centered on whatever their kids whims are, whereas the people who had kids later incorporated kids into their existing lives as adults.

In all seriousness, this post needs to be enlarged and framed and placed in prominent locations all over the universe

― * The "no hands" rule can be compared to socialist tax policies (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 13 August 2012 23:11 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I disagree.

tbf, people who get married at a young age often develop a stage of their personalities together that people may not at older ages. I think a lot more people have a fully-formed version of who they are at 20 as compared to 30, and having kids is just part of that package in some cases.

A young woman offered me her seat on the subway today (I declined because I had two stops left) because she saw me grimacing every time the car lurched (from whatever this nerve/muscle horseshit is that's taking forever to get tested and diagnosed).

I think a lot more people have a fully-formed version of who they are at 20 as compared to 30

It would seem to follow that a lot of people at 20 are wrong!

I think I pretty obviously reversed what I wanted to say there

or I was completely incoherent, let's try again:

Many people form their adult personas post age 20, and if they are married and/or have kids early, that is more likely to become a part of their self-image. If you get married after 30 or later, you're more likely to bring more assumptions to the table.

On the flip side, you could say that people who do these things at a later age are just stodgy and unwilling to make changes.

regardless, getting mad at someone because they would rather spend time with their kids than you is a little weird

No argument there. I mean, it sucks for me that a bunch of my friends are going "see you in 18 years!" but if they will have sex without clearing it with me...

I think getting mad at someone because they would ALWAYS rather spend time with their kids (who are over 10) is entirely understandable.

I think the worst is the idea that one spouse can't have time away from the other and kids unless it's something important. I'm pretty sure my friend doesn't have to rush home every day after work, and that he could plan something with friends, and it doesn't have to be as rigidly-defined as an important activity. Sometimes people just need time with friends, or to themselves.

The feeling that both people are supposed to always be home in the evening and stare at each other or at the kid is kind of irritating. Some people genuinely do find their kids important enough to always want to be there, and in that case... yeah, probably going to have to write them off for some social bits.

My kids are way cooler and more entertaining than anyone i've worked with..

My TV is way cooler and more entertaining than anyone i've ever worked with

I think yeah that might go back to "This kid is the mark we make on the world, we must not fuck this up" (lol good luck) vs "This kid is another entry on an already interesting CV".

people fuck up both approaches, imo

My baby makes me feel something along the lines of 24 or 25. I just feel like I have this whole life ahead of me and anything can happen, tons of energy. Then I remember I am ......geez can't even bring myself to type it out....41. Then I feel old and start thinking when she is ten I will be, when she is twenty I will be. Then I think how close I am to my grandmother, she was 41 when I was born and I keep forgetting she is in her 80's constantly. She seems 65 to me.

apparently posting on ilx keeps us young

I think getting mad at someone because they would ALWAYS rather spend time with their kids (who are over 10) is entirely understandable.

Everything you guys are saying about ppl w kids i pretty much feel that way about ppl when they get steady gf/bfs.

haha u young

Maybe I should put together a poll on "what's the best part about getting old?"

was anyone able to offer up any possible options?!

BECAUSE I AM AT A LOSS

- paul ryan is afraid to mess with u

BECAUSE I AM AT A LOSS

Aero's yer man for this one -- the idea of making a list of reasons I could barely relate to made me irrationally angry.

being old is kindof nice

you know yourself better and you have nicer stuff, youre more certain in your taste and in yourself, you can buy liquor w/o having to show id, you do less stupid and embarrassing stuff

i'll give you the bit about liquor

lol. i won't even give you that... "ID ME, ASSHOLE!"

i *do* have nicer stuff tho.

stupid and embarrassing stuff sometimes happens after i buy liquor

I shaved last week and got id'ed for a couple days... feeling pretty young

Put some pants on

I got carded once recently (I'm 32) in a fancy beer store where I was buying a $30 beer and two $12 beers. Told they guy that if I was really under 21, I would probably be trying to buy cheaper beer.

And be at 7/11.

I'm sure he never had heard that before *arms crossed*

seriously you guys? do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be? isn't that of massive value? I'm 1) lots smarter: I've read more, understood more of it, no longer feel any need to front like I know stuff I don't know so I'm more eager to learn even though I'm slower at being able to take in new information but actually being able to admit the need to learn seems like a worthwhile tradeoff there; 2) considerably more adept at putting what talents I have to use: I know what I'm good at, I know when what I'm good at needs a shot in the arm like taking a risk of some kind, and I'm more genuinely self-critical than at least I was when I was younger: young people say "oh, I suck" or whatever but that's not being self-critical: my tools of evaluation are stronger, and I understand them better; 3) more realistic and able to accept my limitations: I can now say "you know what, that guy is loads smarter on this subject than me, let me just listen to him" instead of digging in my heels in every fuckin conflict I get in. What does this do for my life? Makes it inestimably richer. The humility that comes with age, the real kind of humility that can own up to having become adept and some stuff without feeling puffed-up about it, is fucking gold imo. Get old. Get real old. It's nice.

nb none of this applies to the politics thread where I am still a child forever

The nice thing about age, unless you're actually unintelligent or very self-centered, is you begin to recognize how much you don't know, can't know, and will never know. And then vote to make sure you stratify what you do know into law so other people can't fuck with your tiny world.

yeah but to me it's the difference between getting older and getting *old* xp

I guess that works unless you realize you're not nearly as good at anything as you'd like to be. And everything hurts. xxxp

worst parts of aging = physical
best parts of aging = social/psychological

Tough going when the psyche is a nest of squirming miseries and the downsides start to crop up and the advantages aren't there to fall back on.

do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be?

i know more facts (at least until i forget them) now, but i feel my ability and desire to learn new things/work things out have atrophied.

which is no doubt my fault -- no one made me stop doing calculus or whatever -- but still.

Growing old is the best. Wouldn't have it any other way.

I guess that works unless you realize you're not nearly as good at anything as you'd like to be. And everything hurts. xxxp

oh hush mr beats-himself-up, I've read your writing on film, you know you're good

seriously you guys? do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be? isn't that of massive value?…

i do, but it's torturous. i feel like all it's accomplished is to open my eyes to how ignorant and stupid so much of this planet is.
i'm not saying I wish I was dumb (or more so); but there seems to be an emotional drawback to understanding the world better, I guess.

see, the more I learn, the more I realize that I am still widely ignorant and capable of stupid things, some of which I will only realize were stupid when I'm older still

I'm part of this planet, too

I guess that works unless you realize you're not nearly as good at anything as you'd like to be. And everything hurts. xxxp

oh hush mr beats-himself-up, I've read your writing on film, you know you're good

― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 18:31 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

momentarily excited by misreading this as i've read you're writing a film, a hypothetical i'm mourning the loss of, but yeah i mean the-existence-of-morbs OTM

seriously you guys? do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be? isn't that of massive value?

no. i know a lot more than i used to and am a bit wiser i suppose (not that you'd really notice), but i used to be a hell of a lot sharper. cognitive tasks that were once easy for me, like the construction of elegant sentences, have become laborious and often ultimately impossible tasks. i can't remember shit. i struggle with dense texts. i was never the sharpest tool in the shed, but my thinking seems so hobbled now.

I'll tell you what's cool about being old: being an uncle.

otm

I was just thinking this morning that I expect to look back on my mid-30s as a time when I threw off a lot of ideas that weren't helping me and really, deeply UNDERSTOOD more things. I can't wait to look back and see that this is where my life changed--if not in actual happenings, at least in interior ways.

yeah, learning to do less, better

I'm sad about the death of my younger physical self as I've droned on about before, but otoh my body is still so capable and I'm getting prouder and prouder of it, paradoxically as it gets less "desirable."

Adults always told and showed me in a lot of ways that if you got old ("old") as a single person, you'd become set in your ways and inflexible and selfishly unable to sustain loving relationships, and I just want to smh @ all of them and marvel at how hard they worked to undermine the whole idea of finding your boundaries and asking for what you need and making sure you get it and not just re-molding yourself into any old shape that comes along.

I'll tell you what's cool about being old: being an uncle.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 14, 2012 10:54 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe I just haven't reached the tipping point where getting more old gets less awesome, but personally I'm thrilled with it in almost all ways.

Laurel otm.

Also:

the construction of elegant sentences

Elegance is almost entirely a matter of fitting the expression to the thought, as if it were a glove. Such elegance is not always easy to see or appreciate, when it comes attached to a thought which nettles one, or seems overly simple. Your sentences do not seem either labored or opaque to me, contenderizer.

When I grow older I hope to have a garden, huge garden, eat great homegrown produce and tend to chickens and goats.

...and rabbits.

rabbits are pretty good, yeah

Getting old is kind of sucky when there are no children around, and will be no children around, but hey, they're all gonna hate your guts and by the time you hit 60 so call me up then and we'll play some shuffleboard

We can play shuffleboard now, it's fun! And it only takes one hand, so you can keep a firm grip on your drink with the other one. Another benefit of there being no kids around is that you can drink without worrying about presenting a bad example, no matter what time of day.

You can do everything you want without worrying about presenting a bad example! It's like being under constant surveillance.

we'll play some shuffleboard

curling, imo

by the time you hit 60 call me up then and we'll play some shuffleboard

well fuck man I'll see you next week I guess

lol i wasn't talking 'bout you that kid is gonna be home every Sunday dinner

Radio: We're going ALL THE WAY BACK... to 1998!
Me: Eat every single square inch of my ass, motherfucker *plays M83, dies a little inside*

― Lil Swayne of Pie (DJP)

radio station I sometimes listen to for a few minutes while getting dressed plays a "classic track" around that time. one day recently, it was This Year by The Mơuntain Gơats.

radio station I sometimes listen to for a few minutes while getting dressed

sentence fragment of the year imo

while getting dressed radio station I sometimes for a few minutes listen to

seriously you guys? do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be? isn't that of massive value?

As a wise man once said "the more I know, the less I understand".

Also, booze.

Paul Weller, wasn't it?

Ha, I was thinking some monk. But probably.

I am not menopausal :( dammit.

Hah! My wife constantly explains bad attitudes from middle-aged women as being due to menopause. Say I complain about a female supervisor at work or a female clerk at the DMV: "oh that bitch, she's probably menopausal". Whenever I get skeptical about these diagnoses, she's like "you wouldn't know. it's not going to happen to you!" My wife the female misogynist. : ) I don't think I'm going too have much fun when she hits menopause herself.

It's the perimenopause that's a drag.

Starting blood pressure medication today -- for the rest of my life, I assume.

there is now exactly one player* left in major north american team sports who is older than me: teemu selanne

a good time to start comparing your age to the coaches, innit?

nah. i didn't grow up wanting to be a coach

ok, a good time to eat the bitterness of your childhood dreams unfulfilled

long since nothing left tbh

As I approach 40 in a couple of months I've started to realize that for the rest of my life some part of me will always be sore or hurting. Not terribly, not always the same thing, but something is always going to be off in some way.

yep, that's me right now

I know I'm feeling better when a different chronic ache or pain distracts me from the previously-foremost chronic ache or pain

most of this is related to working out all the time to mitigate some of the effects of aging ... in spite of being sore most days, I feel a lot better than I would without the exercise

sometimes i'm bummed to think about how when my kid is 18 i'm going to be 54

54 is very salvageable, if you take decent care of yourself between now and then. 54 can even be pretty sweet if you've attained some mental, financial and social stability, without devolving into stasis.

fear of "stasis" otm- I'm kinda concerned about a rising emotional tide of what might be the opposite of the much vaunted "wisdom" that is supposed to come with age- namely sentimentality, self-pity, nostalgia and vanity. I mean, yeah, you can suffer from most of those at many ages (twenty somethings who are nostalgic for childhood, for example) but it seems like as you age the risk of collapsing into some kind of isolated, depressive and repetitious posture goes up if you aren't challenging yourself about your own views / comforts / opinions. I mean a good thing about getting older is figuring out what you care about and ignoring / dropping stuff you don't- but the flipside of that is that you can get stuck in a rut as a result, or create a narrow and self-confirming cycle. I also fear that couple-dom tends to amplify this- the shrinking island of "Things We Can Both Agree On" that contracts as either member turns against stuff without finding new stuff to be into.

I'll be 54 when my kid is 18 too. I plan on being in the best shape of my life then. Better start working on that.

I also fear that couple-dom tends to amplify this- the shrinking island of "Things We Can Both Agree On" that contracts as either member turns against stuff without finding new stuff to be into.

Painfully otm.

I've found that some connection and contact with young(er) people helps combat that tendency to shrink or narrow down, but creative outlets help even more. Figuring out how to project an engaging idea into an engaging external form is a thorny enough problem that it helps to keep you awake and alert.

I'll be 54 when my kid is 18 too. I plan on being in the best shape of my life then. Better start working on that.

this will be easier to accomplish if you slack off for the next decade or so

You'll never be as fast (or quick) at 54 as you are at 24 or jump as high, but it's a good age for endurance. You learn how to conserve energy and pay out exactly as much as you need to. Coping poorly with stress through their middle years ruins a lot of people.

namely sentimentality, self-pity, nostalgia and vanity

that stuff is cool

Feel far less sentimental and nostalgic the older I get. "Been there, done that, show me something new". Gonna die soon, why waste time sitting around reminiscing?

as i get older i find it harder to escape thoughts that i've 'wasted' the years to this point

i don't even know what non-wasting would mean, and it doesn't prompt me to actually change anything -- it just makes me glum

oh hai, ur in my head, posting my thoughts

You could look back and think "Oh why didn't _this_ work out?" or "oh, that's the one that got away" or whatever, but you know, sitting there thinking that is the least productive thing you could possible do. In fact, it's not just unproductive, it's harmful to the present! It makes you think the past is the best thing ever and the future could never live up to it, which is entirely wrong on every level. Tomorrow could be the best day of your life (could be worst day of your life too, but hey, let the dice roll).

thoughts that i've 'wasted' the years to this point

Midlife Crisis 101. This just means you aren't a youth anymore and the youthful ideas and emotions you have 'always' considered normal no longer define a shape that you fit into as an adult. Now you're looking at your position in life and your accomplishments to date, trying to create a more fully adult self-definition.

Whatever you do, don't judge yourself using the standards by which a clueless adolescent would judge you, which also happen to be the standards you set for yourself when you were entering adulthood. The truth is that just getting this far on your own is probably a huge accomplishment.

no worries -- i don't really have standards, or ideas and emotions

buncha boohooing in here
one of the worst parts of getting old is how none of my friends have time to or even want to do fun stuff with me anymore
i'm not saying they don't want to hang out, just that they like to sit and talk whereas i like to do stuff

The part of getting old that I really dislike, is knowing that I'm not going to live to see the far future. Best case scenario, if I become the oldest person in the world, I'll get to see 2094, maybe. I'd really like to see what's going on in 2100, 2200, beyond.

you weren't going to see that when you were young either

True, but that is less important. Getting old just gets me closer to being able to approximate an end point. And that end point is not far enough into the future.

The part of getting old that I really dislike, is knowing that I'm not going to live to see the far future.

You should tell this to some really old people and see what their reaction is.

i want to live to see 2100 too but it's not realistic. i'd have to be 111.

lifespan has been increasing ever since they started keeping accurate measures of it

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

Worst part of getting old is seeing young people rebelling in the ways you once rebelled before you realized it was just as system-affirming as anything and not being able to really say anything about it without sounding like an old crank or a reactionary.

Then again maybe young people need old cranks to rebel against and such is the circle of life.

Like everytime someone equates drinking with 'really living' I just want to smack them in the face.

might as well go ahead and say whatever you want-- embrace the power of the elder's unsolicited wisdom

xp

I hate that oppressive "ere get this MDMA down yr gob, don't you want to live?" type attitude. If people exhibit that type of boorish behaviour into middle age they really are fucked. Most ageing drinker types I know wouldn't act like that, because they don't really want to advertise the fact that they love drinking and are killing themselves slowly. They just get on with it as quietly is possible.

edit
as is possible

the diminishing number of possibilities

Getting off your tits in an ageing husk is not really as an alluring possibility as it once was, more like diminishing returns rather than diminishing possibilities.

Looking out across the frozen lake. Heading into parts unknown.

Just finished my first week on a college campus as a full-time student at the (newly minted) age of 31 and have managed to keep my shit together thus far but kind of want to slit my wrists and jump into a volcano right about now

I was 29 when I went back to school for teachers college (after working for six years--once I finished university, I never in a million years expected to ever be in a classroom again). The next few months were among the most stressful of my life. So good luck.

This is my first bachelor's, though. After, in reverse order, six years of cubicle jail, three years of being stuck in Alabama and discovering that my first school's counseling plan for severe anxiety problems was "pack your shit and leave"

I work with a woman who was born in 1993.

And did you hear what I just said? A woman who was born the year I started my sophomore year in college.

f u i graduated college that year

(xpost) Most every new teacher who starts at my school was born after I finished university--five years after and counting. (Would be even worse if it wasn't so difficult to get a job with my board right now; usually they're been substituting for at least a couple of years.)

f u i graduated college that year

Damn, old timer. You probably actually remember watching that Pirates WS.

I graduated in 1990 :(

it's true, we were family

but a homeless guy called me "young man" today! (i gave him a buck for the compliment)

f u i graduated college that year

― mookieproof, Friday, August 29, 2014 9:34 PM (11 minutes ago)

f u i could have gotten my third 4-year degree that year

If I were voting in this again I think I'd say "moles." These goddamn things are taking me over all of a sudden. The fatness, the slowness...I did that to myself. But these barnacles are God giving me a Nelson laugh.

it's true, we were family

that's the only part I remember.

i actually promised myself, as a child, that i would invite willie stargell to my wedding. but he died first

What did I just read recently about something like that?

probably me, on some other thread, when i was similarly drunk

Oh, it's not online. It was that crazy motivational speaker we had that handed out the $2 bills.

One of his big things was writing five thank-you notes a week. Mostly to clients, but to also fill the quota, also writing them to friends, family, neighbors, etc. He said he got the idea from Willie Stargell.

One day, he realizes that he he hasn't thanked Willie Stargell yet for giving him this idea. He puts it off, procrastinates and finally gets around to doing it.

Three months later, Stargell died. If crazy guy had waited any longer, he would've missed his chance. Who knows if WIllie ever read the note, but at least it got sent.

And that .... is the rest of the story...

...Good day!

welp when i was 4.5 years old my parents took me to pirates spring training in bradenton and encouraged me to go down to the railing and get autographs. everyone was very nice -- omar moreno had the best signature -- but when willie signed my program he said, in this super-deep voice, 'now what do you say?'

and i stared at him for like an hour before blurting out, 'thank you?'

Waiting to hear back how much diabeetus I got. Getting old rocks!

Answer: plenty.

What a fun birthday present.

WmC, that sucks big time. I hope this doesn't mean you will be insulin-injection dependent, cz if it is Type 2 instead of Type 1, then you can probably reverse some or even all of it. Which is 100% worth attempting.

Yeah, sensible diet and metformin are the new ingredients here -- I've already been on the exercise bus for almost two years.

xp, yeah, I gave myself the WORST.PRESENT.EVER., roughly 30 years in the making by one count and 13 years by a much more cynical count.

Does an exercise bus work like a Flintstones car?

On the bright side, you got a Rx for metformin.

Nice! That's cheered me up considerably, thank you!

Metformin is known in the experimental gerontology field as a calorie restriction mimetic, inhibiting mitochondrial respiratory complexes, activating AMPK, extending lives of rodents. I crossed the big 40 and started turning grey a few years ago, so made getting into trim a priority. While after few thousands research papers, an hour of daily dogwalking, adopting a low-fat vegan diet, my lipids & blood glucose are in the very low-risk category, I've considered adding metformin to my regimen. The benefit/risk is that good.

Diabetes appears to be in large part a matter of the innate immune system, stimulated by endotoxins from the gut and circulating free saturated fatty acids, attacking pancreatic beta-cells. #1 goal should be dropping weight by any means, but do look into sorting out yer microbiome and reducing dietary saturated fats (and fructose/added sugar) wherever possible.

Muscle tightness, it's unreal. At 39, my only complaint so far.

My capacity to not give a fuck is increasing exponentially though, and that's worth almost any physical tradeoff.

Currently weighing my love of grapefruit and the fact that my work client just sent me a boxful against the warnings I've been reading about grapefruit and statins (which I now take for cholesterol).

#yolo

My father-in-law was talking just the other day about how he can't eat grapefruit because of his statins.

Noticed my first gray chest hair the other day. That's cute. Can't seem to keep on top of my ear hair these days though. Even using a trimmer it comes in fast and dark.

FOUR people i cared about died in the last six weeks. this is the worst thing. i feel like i'm living in a fucking sun kil moon record

An interesting thing about growing older
is being able to see precisely how the mundane, tiny, seemingly inconsequential flaws of a person’s youth
may butterfly-effect and snowball and very gradually, though no great or particularly consequential fault of that person’s own,
turn said person into the kind of ruined, compromised, contemptible mid-lifer you used to look at and wonder:
how does someone wind up like this, why would they choose to be like this, why would they not just stop being awful.

Christ on a bike.

life beats us all into submission at some point. the dreams of youth are stupid anyway, so it's pretty much a wash.

xp yeah, as r. hitchcock cheerfully put it:

the spoiled baby grows into
the escapist teenager
who's the adult alcoholic
who's the middle-aged suicide

something to look forward to anyway

late vote received

Hugh Laurie ✔ @hughlaurie
The loss of elasticity in aging skin. If I frown now, I can still be frowning 20 minutes later, while discussing something delightful.

Inelastic skin is among the most salient of my current symptoms of aging. That and my very slowly eroding energy and vitality. I count myself lucky that nothing worse has arisen yet.

it's depressing what super powered hand driers can do to one's skin

Anybody else here with hypothyroidism? My levothyroxine dosage just got quadrupled and I'm a little nervous about a jump that big.

Hi.

have to pee too often
diminishing libido
knees
face

xp - Hi!

Jumping from 50 mcg to 200 unnerves me. My wife's been on this stuff for a decade and her doctor's never nudged it in any direction more than 20 at a time.

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism last year. I'm still on a relatively low dose. If you are worried about the jump in dosage, just remember there's a hard limit to how low your thyroid output can go. Once you're at zero, your levothyroxine dosage will no doubt stabilize.

more seriously, I'm not sure there's anything effective you can do to halt the erosion, so worrying about it seems unavailing.

Well, I actually haven't been treated for it at all yet, as I only got diagnosed at my last doctor the day the surgery closed, and they wanted my new GP to monitor it, so I basically have to do blood test -> diagnosis -> treatment all over again.

It's not really a "getting old" thing for me, though, it's genetic - like, literally *everyone* on my mum's side has a fucked up thyroid, and I'd been waiting for it to happen since I hit my 20s. It fucking sucks, though, and it's given me anaemia and tinnitus and weird skin and all sorts of shit.

cysts

Talking with another coach at our badminton tournament today. She was, I don't know, 30 maybe? Talking, talking, and I'm really attracted to her. And she's got no ring of any kind--rare with female teachers. Then the George Costanza flash of awareness: when you're 56 and looking more and more like Nick Nolte's mug shot by the day, you're officially out of the contest.

Nah, not necessarily. Why shoot yourself in the foot like that?

xp, haha
Yeah, and no amount of "but some women like older men!" rationalization can convince you.

Half your age plus seven is a widely accepted creepiness measure. (56 / 2) + 7 = 35

Over 30 is fine no matter what.

It’s in the ten commandments.

But I’m 110.

It’s ok, plenty of fly 62 year olds.

https://i.imgur.com/Df2XGJL.gif

https://www.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/hero_mobile/public/thumbnails/image/2012/10/09/13/glitter.jpg

xp!

I'm 3......6? and the half my age plus seven rule is not gonna wash tbh even if it were on any of the few cards I have left

With some slight modification (factoring in how ugly your face is divided by how horrifyingly unaesthetic your crinkly old knackers are) it could be called The Kissinger Delusion Equation.

Not kissing'er more likely

"What's the worst thing about being old, Alvin?"

"The worst thing about being old is remembering when you were young."

-- The Straight Story

I miss romantic love specifically and romanticism in general the most

Yes, that was good.

idk, decaying into an unthreatening, avuncular old gimp type figure has been the making of me tbh!

I waver between both those feelings but calstars otm mostly

just making the best of a situation with very few options tbh.

In some ways I feel blessed, especially when I see ppl my age with MS, Cancer, succumbing to boozer life etc.

the shift in hangover type from physical upset to existential dread

the last few years has been brutal to old drinker buddies of mine, long gone are the days where I could pass through a few pubs and be guaranteed to bump into a friend or two.

possibly the upside of my lifelong clinical depression is that it skews my memory. i don't remember the good parts of being young, only the bad parts.

Can I ask, how old are the people saying they miss romantic love/romanticism and why they feel it's gone away? Do they have relationships? Do they 'date' if not? If not why is that please?

I'm still annoyingly romantic fwiw

My kids are 3 and 7 and I have no plans to have more. It occurred to me the other day that I only have maybe a few more years where either of them will be all that affectionate to me, and in about two years neither of them will be a cuddly little fuzzball anymore. I almost started to cry. That is hands down the worst part of getting old for me -- the fact that that short, blessed time goes by so fast and will end, never to return.

I saw the post I wrote when I was 50, handily it's just above the "Skipping" void.

Apart from having sore eyeballs and now being "short and long sighted" much of what I wrote is still true.

Will check again in another eight years...

My 18 and 16 year olds are still quite affectionate. You don't have to lose that aspect. I was never that way with my own parents but I set out to be different in this regard and it's worked. My 12 year old is also affectionate, but the teenage years don't have to be some distancing thing. It probably helps that we live in a small apartment and no one has much space of their own at home.