How old are you?

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Forgive me if this has been posted before, but since I've been lurking I haven't seen it.

Recently my 89-year-old grandmother had her 6th heart attack. While visiting her in the hospital, we had a chat about how old she feels. She said that mentally, she doesn't feel any different from when she was 17. She's sharp, my grandma, no dementia, memory loss or likewise. She still bakes cakes and biscuits (cookies, for the American folk) and enters them in competitions (often winning those competitions). She still likes to go shopping, and she was over the moon to finally get a credit card 5 years ago.

I don't feel any more mature than what I was at 19, even though I know so much has happened between now and then that has made more of an adult (whatever that means), or more experienced. I remember being 13 and feeling like I was 40 because so much had happened. If I was to do the calculations that would mean that I should now feel as though I was about 51. Sometimes I do, like when bad things happen, but usually - in the normal day-to-day running of life, I still think I'm just like I was when I was 19.

How old do you feel? Why?

― Mascara, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This week i feel 45 . But usaully it is my age (27)

― anthony, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I never feel older than I am, I can't, haven't experienced it, think once you are past your teenage years the way you age is all mental, so maintaining your marbles is important in that respect. Of course there is physical decline. Maybe age is a social construct?

But pretentious twaddle aside, I often feel about 10 years old, or at least I'd like to be 10 again! Really 25.

― jel, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I feel as old as Iggy Pop looks. I look as old as Iggy Pop feels.

― Momus, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Found a tremendously inspirational quote in a Pete Townshend interview from 1996 - they asked him if he felt silly about the "Hope I die before I get old" lyric, to which he replied, "No, I still do"

― dave q, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know how 28 is meant to feel but I quite like it.

I often wish I was younger so I wouldn't feel so bitter about the younger posters on this board who are smarter and more articulate than I was at their age. I hate you all.

― Tom, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 17. I feel 100. A socially disconnected often incoherent near- invalid. I don't know. Some days it's different. Some days I feel 5.

― Melissa W, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

41 = the geezer of the board? (tho not of ILM: where, conspiracy alert, *I* coaxed the older contribs on over ha ha). I was actually abt 110 when I was 17, and first fell in love at 36, so I am just doing stuff a bit out of order. Both my grans were mentally (not physically) spry and hilarious into their mid-90s, and v.cross with their bodies for not keeping up.

― mark s, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, my great grandmother was going abroad on holiday on her own when she was 80, that's the sorta thing to aim for.

― jel, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am 27. People still ask me if I graduated from high school yet. Maybe they want to subtly hint I am a moron? If so, they are not far off target. I have nightmares in which I fail my exams.

― nath (nathalie), Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

35. "You make me feel so young."

― Andrew L, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 35 as well Andrew. Some days I feel positively medieval, others I feel as though I'm a gauche 16 year old who hasn't been found out yet.

― Billy Dods, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 38. Only feels noticeably diff. to being 18 or 28 or whatever because I get tired easier.

― duane, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

normally, about 70 yrs old - i'm a cranky old fart who hates exercise, smokes like a chimney and despises humanity...i look about 20, if i shave, if i don't, near 40.

― Geoff, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am 18, but I feel much older, not sure how much though, possibly just middle-aged.

Bill

― Bill, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

33. There's more old bastards here than I thought.

― scott, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

21, finally an age were I don't feel haunted by being a young'un.

― Sterling Clover, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Chronologically - thirty.

Subtract exactly 8.6 years to get mental age.

― Kim, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Technically 18, but like Bill I think of bitter and twistedness as a mid life crisis rather than teen angst. Usually around this point I do or say something only a twelve year old would and realise how wrong I am.

Willy.

― Graham, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Most of the time im 19; the minute i step into work i suddenly feel 92. All my joints ache and i feel sleepy.

― turner, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I are being 20, and are having a mental age of 02.

― DG, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am 18. I don't know how I feel. I've never really felt an age. I've always felt extremely deatatched from my body, I feel like I don't exist as a physical entity. I feel weird checking "female" on forms & such because I don't feel like I am a girl.

― 1 1 2 3 5, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Posters are surprisingly young. I am 24. I dont "feel" age, except when I come across younger people (for me checkpoint charlie is the 80s -if you're born after 1980, you freak me out). Then I feel very old.

― Simon, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yay for freaking people out with youth. I end up hanging around people who are older and older just so I can continue to say "I was born in 1980" and watch them shudder.

Age = 21

Psychological age = 17, ie. shy, not yet fully formed in many respects.

― Dave M., Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Physical age 25, but owing to a seriously debilitating hangover my mental age is currently a senile 95.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was talkign about youth over on ILM a few days since and look! I'm a child here at amere 20.

― matthew james, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My brother was 24 today. I explained to him it was time for his quarter life crisis.

― Tom, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am 21. I feel like a 37 year old mum with all the morons I hang out with. I'm stuck cleaning up after everyone, having to buy food because the idiots eat me out of home and house without asking, and reminding them to throw out their cigarette butts. I am a pretty drunken mother but still a mother, and I don't recall signing up for it.

― Ally, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

25. People, especially bouncers and bartenders, think I'm under 21.

― bnw, Sunday, 12 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Al is only 24??? Awww! He's so young!! He must be wise for his years... really? You mean, he's been 23 each time I've met him? Oy vey!

You may register my surprise with the appropriate parties if you wish.

I'm 20 and the oldest person I have ever dated has been 27. The oldest geezers that I've been to the pub with have probably been... Mark S...! Oh, uncles and family elders don't count, do they? Naaw.

― Sarah, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 20, but I've been acting younger every year since I was 13. I guess that makes me 6 or something.

― Otis Wheeler, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(But what age do I *look*? I quizzed someone who didn't know, and — admittedly bamboozled by a clue I'd given abt sequential non-primes — he guessed 29!! BEST PRESENT OF THE DAY!!!)

I realise I am setting myself up here.

― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Recently, a friend from high school whom I haven't seen in years saw a picture of me on the web that was taken last year. Her comment: "Wow Dan, you sure don't look like a 17-year-old anymore!"

At that moment, I felt 40. I am actually 28.

― Dan Perry, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am twenty-six or twenty-two, depending on whether you believe I'm only as old as the man I feel.

― Madchen, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 36. It sux0rs.

x0x0

― Norman Fay, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 28, but so is everyone. Madchen, you're making me feel sick now.

― Nick, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 26. And it suX0r. I'm an old, blobby, uninspired, grumpy, pathetic, irked, uninspired 26. I'm also a reactionary 26 with low self-esteem and a suffering-artist complex. (Did I mention I'm uninspired? Woe is me. Where's my snuff box?)

I think I'm getting close to seriously becoming a dead-to-the-world 27. Or else a trying-to-hard-to-reclaim-lost-yoof 27. Either way, 27 is less than six months away. Huzzah.

Ah, just read the original query. So, how old do I FEEL? 56. A punching-the-clock, ball-and-chain, hyphen-abusing 56. With the gout.

― David Raposa, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Just" turned 30 (four months ago; rilly clinging to "just"). Feh.

― AP, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

33. At the moment I'm in a similar life situation to the one I had aged 24 (oh, er, 'cept for the fact I'm married); unfortunately I have all the energy of a 55-year-old ex-miner living at altitude.

― Michael Jones, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i'm 26 but i feel simultaneously older and younger. older because of the way i look with disdain on phenomena like limp bizkit. younger because when i meet new people who i like for whatever reason i think they're automatically at least 3 years older than i am, because they are all 'mature' etc.

― maura, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thank you, Maura, for noting a phenomenon that I thought was alien to everyone by myself.

If my peers could please stop acting so "mature" (with their "houses" and "babies" and "savings accounts"), I'd be very happy, and feel so much more adequate as a cog in modern society. Thank you.

Hey, Maura - let's go to the mall & hang out @ the food court! I'll treat ya to McD's and some arcade action. Oh, yeah.

― David Raposa, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am 23 by the clock. That feels way older when I'm teaching a room of undergraduates. It feels a bit younger when I'm in a group of people I don't know.

― Josh, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ten days off 21. Some days I feel 15. More often I feel 30.

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mike: an outdoor miner, then?

― the pinefox, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am 25, but i'm finding that my motivation for doing an increasing amount of things is 'to do it before you're (age+1)'. But i've been saying that for 10 years, and it still never seems to get done...

― s.o.s, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

24 yay!......hmmmmm actually the thought of approaching my first quarter century hardly fills me with glee :-( I would agree with the previous poster about people born after 1980, Oh and tip if you wanna feel young don't become a Teacher...ever, ever ever!

― Richard, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

40, but I've felt as if I'm in my late 20s/early 30s forever. And that's just fine. Apparently that won't last much longer, though, since I'm looking into teaching at the elem. school level and will probably start next month. What did you mean by that remark Richard? Teaching what?

― Arthur, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 16. I feel very young because there's so much I don't know about, but I feel old enough to go about finding out these things.

― Lyra, Tuesday, 14 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Re: Teaching

That's a good tip - don't become a teacher if you want to feel young. When I was at university I would tutor English to Senior high school students. I started university when I was 16, the kids I tutored were aged between 15 and 18. They would start questions to me with, "When you were a kid in the olden days...". To high school students "teacher" = OLD. One of the younger ones asked me what the 80s were like...I have never felt older. People born post 1980 freak me out too.

― Mascara, Tuesday, 14 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

27 which is the arithmetical mean (rounded down) of ages on this board. Up to now.

― Pete, Tuesday, 14 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Turning 27 in a couple weeks. raher diffident about it at this point. 25 felt meaningful. Now its just a downward slide to 30. I kid. Lots of my friends are 30 (and up) and they all vary considerably on how they look/act. Hopefully I can age as gracefully as William S. ;-P

― Scott, Tuesday, 14 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You're only as old as you can remember. I'm 27 but I don't remember all of it.

― The Mighty Trash, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm 53, grandma of 6 but I have adopted another one:) I feel about your ages... :) I think the better we feel, the younger we feel and if we are in halfway good health, we have it made. I guess the time I really felt old was when my family left home. That was a very hard time indeed.Since then I have gotten younger. I can even see my hair getting darker , but I have to look really close.(grin) Gale

― Gale, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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