"I'm old" - I bet you aren't

[AndreaMarvell]

So many times I see people write this, and I bet that they are no more than 65.

I see it on here a lot too, Op. I'm 52, don't think I'm old and would never say it. Not until I Al officially "old" although I think age is just a mindset anyway.

I've noticed this for years. People in their 30's love calling themself old, for some reason.

I said it in a tongue-in-cheek way yesterday when I was trying to sort out an Apple Pay issue with a chap at the bank and he told me his name was Darude. I'm 47 and Sandstorm came out in the LAST CENTURY!

Because age is relative, I think I somehow did feel older at 30 than 40. At 30 I was much more conscious of having recently 'aged out' of being a young adult, of having stopped doing things I did when I was 'young' and having gained new responsibilities. I was also heavily pregnant when I turned 30, so was absolutely knackered, and spent the next few years feeling dramatically aged by sleep deprivation! I feel better now, have regained more social life and spend more time with people older than me, so I do think I feel younger. It's like how I feel taller in India than in the Netherlands - I feel younger at the very youngest bit of middle age than I did at the very oldest bit of young adulthood!

Maybe they're seeing it as a positive thing - unlike most of MN?!

They're no longer young and immature, making foolish uninformed decisions; but they now have experience, have carved out their own place and are properly informed as they make their way through.

Look at how many adult women object (justifiably) to being referred to as a 'girl'. It's not the suggestion that they look fresh, well-toned and energetic that they have an issue with, but rather the fact that they are being dismissed as somebody who is immature and lacks the wisdom and responsibility that come with adulthood.

Depends on your perspective I suppose- my gran died at 45, and my mother at 58, so to me, anyone over 60 is old. And lucky.

Just realised I am 46 not 47, I am turning into my dad and adding on a year!

I'm 66 so getting older but have no health issues, do spin , pilates and weights, go out a lot and have a pretty good life.

I also notice people in their 30’s calling themselves young girls (this years MAFS).

I am in my 50's sometimes feel old.Luckily not got any health problems.I am probably about to retrain, got to go back to college with loads of 18 year olds.I am getting nervous, just hinking about it.uggghh
I will feel old I know it.Nevermind it might also be fun.

That is bizarre. I think a lot of people still like to hold on to the word 'girl' even when they're well into adulthood, and also like to think of themselves as young - which indeed they are: young adults... but they conflate the two and end up with 'young girl', which is bonkers. Even a 13yo girl isn't a young girl anymore, being as she is well into the older half of those who can be categorised as girls.

Most teenagers (not 18 or 19, obviously) don't like to be called children, preferring 'young people' or maybe 'youth' - so why ever a 32yo woman would want to be called a 'young girl' is anybody's guess.

0-18 child
18-25 young adult
25-45 regular adult
46-55 mature adult
55-70 vintage and interesting
75+ precious antique

Love all that "original stuff". I'm 77 and still like the food as well. Just beginning to feel old cause the knees aren't so bendy.

I often say "I'm too old for this shit" when my grandchildren are whining about something or when I'm rushing to catch my bus. Or trying to get up off the floor after kneeling down.

I'm 45, so guess that's middle aged and not old.

I became a grandmother at 37 and it does make me giggle that on MN all grandparents are presumed to be 70+ and in rocking chairs.

I'm 68 and sometimes put "I'm old" in a comment if I'm responding to someone that sounds much younger. I imagine the majority of MNs are younger, though not necessarily young per se. I think explaining that I'm of a certain age helps if I'm being a bit "tongue in cheek" about a thread - if that makes sense.

I used to say I was old when I was 25. I think because life changes so fast for you around then, you change so much from who you were even a couple of years before, time seems to be running out for you to find "your life" (you don't realise that you don't have to be locked into your job or career or city or social circle or relationship forever...). Plus you don't know what old even is, all you have to compare your current stage to is childhood and studenthood.

I'm now in my 40s, which would have seemed not just old but unimaginably ancient when I was 25 (literally, I couldn't imagine surviving to this age). And I say I'm young because I actually feel young in my body and soul. I think in my 20s I thought life just sort of stopped once you hit 30 and that was it? And now I realise how many years I have ahead of me and how much I can do in those years, and nothing is stopping me.

I've never understood the old-before-their-time crew - people my age or even younger who say they're too old to dance or go out or exercise or have fun.

With my 68 year old cynical hat on, I think many of them say this so others can respond with "OMG you look fabulous and you only look 18"

@ginasevern Same here, and same age as you too!

That reminds me of when I was in the maternity ward after having my first baby. There were five of us in the ward. Four of us mums, myself included, were aged from 19 to 23. The other mum had just had her 4th baby and was aged 37. I was quite shocked that she was so old, I hadn't realised that women as old as that could still have babies. I remember thinking that it was probably a bit dangerous to her health to have given birth at that age. 😂😂

I saw a photo of my mother aged 3y - she looked ancient! She was wearing a tartan skirt, white frilly blouse and hand knitted cardigan. Her hair was permed short and curly. This was on a summer holiday in 1966.

She was 33 and my dad 38 when I was born. He often got mistaken for my grandad.

**When she was 37

I was slightly confused at first as to how a 3yo could possibly look ancient; but I figured that you must have meant that you were 3 then... which, as you've now clarified, you almost would have been!

I think it’s fair to say that 65 is old. From a medical perspective you would be geriatric at that age.

However, when I was in my 20s I didn’t distinguish between people in their 40s and people in the 60s. They were all equally in the ‘old’ basket. I remember being hit on by a 42 year old and thinking that he was ancient!

@MidnightMeltdown an F2 spoke to me as though I were a decrepit imbecile in 2021. I was 60. The words "you're over 60, I'll assume you are retired" fell from her mouth.

Notwithstanding the dismissiveness and the missed diagnosis, that has stayed with me. The entire exchange was ageist, discriminatory and reductive. It was also spectacularly rude.

It was the first time I had ever experienced discrimination and it was shocking.

People may be "old" at 65 on a chronological basis but it doesn't mean their brains no longer work, it doesn't mean their intellect is diminished and whilst their bodies may not look as perfect as they did forty, thirty, twenty years before, it doesn't mean they no longer work perfectly well.