When was the first time in your life you felt old?

First time I felt old was 1978, when I was five and went to school.

No, wait, scratch that, when I was conceived and realised that I was no longer abstract and had become concrete. That sucked.

and then again last week when my best friend announced she's getting married

Some people are born the same age as everyone else, they age with their peer group and do things at the "station of life" that is societally accepted by everyone else.

Other people are born at a certain indefinable mental age, and stay that way their entire life, regardless of their physical age, or what their cohort may be doing. These people will seem precocious or prematurely aged when young, and will seem like "free spirits" or worse, "Peter Pans" when they become old.

Everyone experiences Age Vertigo at some point or another. Some Age Vertigo is realising that you have moved on with yer peer group, and a younger one has come up behind you. And some Age Vertigo is realising that you are not in touch with yer peer group, and that you have started identifying more with people of a different group.

imagine how your mother felt. both of you.

Also, my first 24 hour hangover made me realise that was sadly no longer indestructible in the manner of Wile E Coyote stretching his limbs and popping back into shape, ready to carry on as he left off.

Which is weird, because I do agree with what Kate says, but then friends=peer group from some points of view, so it's not like I realised a peer group had grown up behind my own, more that younger people were suddenly included in my peer group.

Sigh. I wish it did, in my case.

I guess by Peer Group, I really mean cohort in the sociological sense of the word, i.e. people who were born within - what is it? 4 years? - on either side of yer birthdate. Your AGE peers, rather than your social or mental peers.

it was the first rec I ever bought. I have a copy of 'the bends' on tape as well. the latter is gathering dust as my brother does not care for radiohead (he likes coldplay and eminem).

although, looking at lipstickandcigarettes.com is one hell of a way to feel older:(

Also, I'm not as interested in clubbing anymore, I'd sooner go a jazz club and sip scotch...

As for me, part of me still assumes I'm 19 (this is a lie, but it's a convenient fiction).

I can imagine Haley Joel Osment saying this.

Her: "Where do you think you'll go after this job?"
Me: "I'm really not sure at the moment. But I'm still young, so..."
Her: "How old are you?"
Me: "23"
Her: [pause] "that's not *that* young..."
Me: "..."

When my friends got married off, I felt younger not older. (Suckaz!)

And finding out that people who weren't even born when I was starting secondary school have jobs / play in the Premiership / get capped for England.

Funnily enough getting married didn't make me feel older. I've never felt so young in my life - like I wasn't old enough to be doing it properly. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret it at all, but it still seems like something grown-ups should be doing, not me.

(Later this was compounded the first time I had sex with someone who was born in a year that I could actually remember. But these were different people, and the events happened many years apart.)

i had to take two days off work.

2) Several years ago I went to a birthday lunch where I chatted with my coworkers about real estate -- the pros and cons of different types of mortgages, prices in various DC neighborhoods, what effect the new mayor would have, etc. -- as a homeowner.

2. the day after a hardcore/noise show, getting coffee at a coffee shop, the barista or whatever acknowledge seeing me there, saying she was surprised to see someone so old there and that it was cool. Um, maybe.

throwing my back out for the first time the day i turned 30. i ended up throwing my back out 4 more times during the rest of my 30s, and now the thing that makes me feel "old" most often is sciatica and just chronic pain in general. i'm 41 now. i suppose that pretty soon one of my friends from HS will become a grandparent, and that might feel like another milestone!

by the way, i was searching for "bands you heard for the first time today". can't remember what that thread is called. the band is called eddie lizard and wizard gizzard, and they are worse than dream theater

I think you mean thin lizzy and the mick jones from foreigner not the clash wizard gizzard

yes!

lol

twenty-one years pass...

I think this is the first thing tbh

yeah, i was curious to hear what people think nowadays! although i'm sure it's come up a lot in the 40s / 50s / etcs threads

or wait, i just processed your joke sleeve, lol!

not kidding! but yes joking.

Aja from Aja/Dante fame would be in her mid-thirties

I hope she's doing well, given what her mother was like.

The answer to the question is 48. I didn't feel like I I was getting old until I was 48, which proves that I'm much too immature.

by the way, i was searching for "bands you heard for the first time today". can't remember what that thread is called. the band is called eddie lizard and wizard gizzard, and they are worse than dream theater

― z_tbd, Saturday, September 7, 2024 4:37 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol I just saw them on Wednesday and they ruled. but at the end of their nearly 3-hour set I was definitely like okay enough already

the show that made me feel old was George Clanton a few months ago. I think it's the first show I've been to where the vast majority of folks there were younger than me. I remember being in the pit thinking this might be the last time I ever go to a show like this. and it was fun but it also kind of sucked. way too loud, getting bumped into constantly, people spilling shit on you, everyone's so sweaty, plus you're having thoughts of having to wake up early because of the kids. to be fair I never really enjoyed being in the pit but this was the moment where I thought "hmm I might be done with this for good"

I think the first time it really hit me was when I realized my first concert (U2 on the War tour, when I was 13) had happened 20 years ago — which seemed like a very long time! Of course, that concert was now 41 years ago.

A few years ago, when I got a big haircut and noticed I had these gnarly hairs growing out of the sides of my ears.

Off topic but yeah on bands outstaying their welcome, I remember watching a Black Sabbath concert video with my best friend in junior high school at his house one afternoon in 198x and after a couple songs they played snowblind and in the middle my friend said “I kind of get the point”

zach, let's meet for a Negroni.

The first time was right at 10 years ago, when the blood donation center said I couldn't donate anymore until I got my BP under control, I went to have a full checkup, and suddenly found out I had all the diseases of middle-aged indolence. I felt great! But no. And the most recent time has been the past couple of months, feeling my feet/hips/knees break down from hours standing behind the bar. Just bought a pair of Crocs this morning on the recommendation of a carpenter friend.

xp alfred, i declare right now, the first time i meet you i will have your negroni in hand <3

don't hold me to that, though, i'm very forgetful. but let's get a negroni!

if you are still going to shows you are not old

being the only one in class who got the teacher’s Dangerous Minds reference

Finding out Daniel_Rf was a posting here as a high schooler 21 years ago.

and j0rdan!

This year (49) when I realized I haven’t heard any new music all year, I don’t recognize names of bands/artists in the “scene,” the only shows I want to go to are reunion shows from last century bands … and I kinda don’t care tbh.

"last century bands" lol

Not the first time by any means, but I recently realized I am a few years away from being as old as Dylan was when he made Time Out of Mind. He seemed so old to me when that record came out.

when i turned 40...that did it to me. oof. i was like, well, that's that then. i felt like i had been in my 30s for a hundred years. and then 40 to 50 was like the blink of an eye.

I was always hyper aware of the passage of time, I think in my younger days I thought that if I did this I would be prepared and the actual milestones wouldn't hit me as hard. This does not work, young people please do not try.

The first time I had a "wow we must be really over the hill now" conversation with mates was when pinterest came out and we couldn't understand what the appeal was. We were, what, in our mid 20's? Stupid fucking kids.

Not the first time by any means, but I recently realized I am a few years away from being as old as Dylan was when he made Time Out of Mind. He seemed so old to me when that record came out.

When it came out my dad listened to it with me and went "wow, he's really sounding old, will probably be dead in a few years", which made me cry, so my dad was like "hey don't take it like that, he had a very full life, it's not so sad".

My dad passed away in 2010 so Dylan had the last laugh there.

Funnily enough, I felt old at 21, 22. Cruelly, awfully old. I felt old at 25, I remember getting my first nasolabial fold around then, thinking "wtf? it's staying there? it's not going away?" I stopped feeling old around 31, and I don't feel old today. I see other people my age, numerically, bopping around and I feel much younger than them. It is very strange sometimes to meet somebody who looks and acts ancient and learn that they're three or five years younger than I am. I'm starting to get old around the eyes and my trunk flesh is getting dimpled and it became clear once I hit 40 that I needed to quit drinking and smoking but I don't feel old, now, I feel very very young.

"When was the first time in your life you felt young?"

you can all just be thankful none of you are the person who started this thread 21 year ago tbh

I had a phase of feeling old in my fifties, but that’s passed since I’ve been in my sixties, I guess in part because I have friends of all ages. My take: in all the thousands of years that people have been existed, we are all alive on this planet at the same microscopic time interval, so in the grand scheme of things we are all basically the same age.

turning 22 this December...

Ask Rufus (Maria & Scott's 7-year-old)

It didn't exactly make me feel "old", but the first time I felt I had aged out of music was when Green Day became popular. Billie Joe is only a couple of weeks younger than me, but though the music didn't shock me or go over my head, I definitely felt "this is for little brats".

My dad died when I was 36 and that inculcated a change in perspective from "going out into life" to "going towards death" that hasn't really abated.

The 2020s have brought about the start of real feelings of physical debilitation, despite staying active and continuing to live a healthy lifestyle.

Oh, mental debilitation too.

by the way, i was searching for "bands you heard for the first time today". can't remember what that thread is called. the band is called eddie lizard and wizard gizzard, and they are worse than dream theater

― z_tbd

not sure if this is the actual name of the band or if you're referring to King Gizzard, who are one of those bands I refuse to listen to because their name is so stupid. that's not entirely fair of me but fuck it, i barely listen to music now these days, except i guess for ll cool j and femtanyl

i've felt "old" for as long as i can remember - yay childhood trauma - but i feel old in different ways these days. i was always afraid of the inevitable decay of my body, knowing the older i got the more i would hurt and... it's ok, so far? sometimes i stop to think about it and realize how much physical pain i'm regularly in. my body didn't hurt like this 25 years ago. i was hurting in different, worse ways, ways i'm not hurting now. one of my best friends had a massive heart attack when he was around 42, quadruple bypass. he's about my age. that made me really think about my own mortality.

sometimes i feel like i don't have very long to live, but then i look at my dad, who died at the age of 78, and i look at my mom, who's alive at 75, and i figure i probably have a while to go, particularly now that i know i'm not going to kill myself. that's really changed my perspective on age too. for most of my life, my entire life has been based around not killing myself. i feel like i'm free to do other things now, to live my life instead of spending all my time trying to not die.

and if i do die, well, it's scary, but i'm gonna be honest, at this point i feel like i've done things that are scarier than dying. sometimes people say, you know, death is the easy way out, and i haven't died so i don't know how true that is. i look back, though, and there are a lot of times where it probably would have been easier to die, and i chose to live anyway, and i'm grateful i made that choice, and i'm proud of myself for making that choice.

i'm a lot slower than i used to be. i take my time with things. sometimes i feel like i can't keep up. it feels like this world is getting faster and faster. i can't go any faster than i'm going. i'd prefer to go slower than i'm going. i don't know if this is the september of my years. here in portland, we have about five "false autumns" before the real one. i figure this is one of my false autumns. if i'm wrong, i'm wrong.

I had a phase of feeling old in my fifties, but that’s passed since I’ve been in my sixties, I guess in part because I have friends of all ages. My take: in all the thousands of years that people have been existed, we are all alive on this planet at the same microscopic time interval, so in the grand scheme of things we are all basically the same age.

― mike t-diva

ok true in a certain sense but i'm still not gonna get with a 22-year-old :)

if you are still going to shows you are not old

― Dan S

welp, i'm old, haha. shows start so late! and they end even later!

you can all just be thankful none of you are the person who started this thread 21 year ago tbh

― LocalGarda

what are you accusing ronan of

the main thing that makes me feel old is making cultural references to things most people don't know anything about anymore

i made a reference on discord just now to the supremely annoying "not the mama" catchphrase from the 1990s _Dinosaurs_ TV series and i realize, oh, wait, nobody's going to get that reference

that's why reference-based communication is bound to fail. eventually everyone ages or zones out of understanding until all reference-based communication seems like nonsense. i had to ask three questions recently to understand a meme with Fozzie Bear, Owen Wilson, and some guy.

The first time I genuinely felt old was realizing that I am as close to 70 as I am to 30. That shit was sooooobering.

it passed btw -- the key (for me at least) is letting the feeling pass through and moving on

Feeling the need to sit down. From 2-3 years ago (I'm 37). It feels banal, minuscule, insidious. Like the first chill / pull towards the abyss.

This year (49) when I realized I haven’t heard any new music all year, I don’t recognize names of bands/artists in the “scene,” the only shows I want to go to are reunion shows from last century bands … and I kinda don’t care tbh.

― sarahell, Sunday, September 8, 2024 4:24 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I skipped learning about new music for a long time but playlists and Tt have gotten me into some new stuff! I'm sure it's depressingly mainstream in this connected era. My 25yo colleague said all the kids love Waxahatchee, Big Thief, Adrienne Lenker. Bully might be less mainstream. Sometimes I think, "This is the new version of [old similar artist]" but hell, the bands I liked in 1998 were probably the new version of someone else at the time.

Oddly enough, I feel older realizing something was 10 years ago than I do 20 years ago. I sometimes catch myself thinking of, say, 2014 as "just a few years ago" rather than a full decade. 

Like, I went to see Pulp this last weekend and split a cab home with an ex. We were talking about how we never dreamt we'd get to see the band back then and realized that the last time we'd been in that venue was seeing My Bloody Valentine together in November 2013. It seemed so wild that was a full decade ago, and bewildered me for a bit.

scabs take forever to heal

scabs take forever to heal

Yep. And they heal even more slowly on diabetics, which is why I've given up on the idea of getting any more tattoos.

Nothing dramatic here. I grasped early on that just by virtue of being alive that I was growing old and eventually going to die. For a long time just coping with the challenges of adulthood, marriage and parenthood occupied the foreground of my attention, but daily life never entirely hid that awareness of aging and death. It remained hovering just in the wings offstage, but still visible and real to me. So, it never sneaked up on me and surprised me.

If I had to pinpoint one moment when that early awareness dawned on me it was sitting in the back seat of our family car behind the driver's seat and looking at the sun on the back of my dad's hands on the steering wheel. They were so unlike my own - to me they looked wrecked. That was when I realized what life did to you. He was about 40. I must have been about 10.

Less than a year ago I was having lunch with my mom, and I looked at the freckles and spots on her arms and mine were much the same as hers …