Tell me about a time when you felt old

[Newbie8918]

This is absolutely ‘just for fun’ on a wet Sunday, so please take this in the spirit that it’s intended!

I was at an 18th birthday party a few weeks ago. I went to the buffet and there was hot and cold food (think curry and sandwiches) so I had a plate of both. A lovely young man behind me, asked where I was sitting and whether I needed help, carrying one of the plates back.

Im able bodied and 44 😆 but appreciated the sentiment

Your turn!

When I realised I was old enough to be my student at works nan

Or that there was once something called a party line on landlines, which meant that if the neighbour you shared your line with was on the phone you couldn’t use yours and vice versa - not to mention that the conversations could be listened in on !!

I teach teenagers, so pretty much every day!
But also, young teachers, when I talk about how excited we'd get if we had a room with a white board instead of a chalk board. How you could totally bollocks up the photocopier by printing on oht incorrectly. And how once, because I was once the young one, I learned how to do a ppt then showed everyone else😆

The bewilderment on a young colleague's face when I explained about needing to know whether your car took 2, 3 or 4 star petrol.

Also, having to remember to carry two pence and ten pence coins when going out just in case you needed to use the phone. I guess the question "Have you got any change for the phone?" is never asked now 😁

I was out shopping with DS, then a toddler in a buggy. A lady in the shoe shop said to him 'ooh is granny looking after you today?' I was 41.

One of my pupils asked what it was like being a teacher in Victorian times. 😳🤣

Ooh that would make me murderous! Did you say anything? I don't think I'd be able to stop myself!

When recently driving through the neighbourhood I moved away from, for the first time in some twenty five years. The landscape had naturally changed somewhat, but I felt really old when I realised that in most cases I actually couldn’t remember what was there before.

I’d have told her ‘no we haven’t and we won’t be choosing anything here’ and then left, never to return.

I was at a work conference, with people in the wider team who don’t know me personally. I have worked at the company over 20 years and a lot of the team are under 30, I am over 50. We were doing a team building exercise and asked to get into groups, everyone avoided my eye until an ex colleague came to my aide. I felt like nobody wanted to be in a group with the old woman. It was a bit of a wake up call as I thought I was the same as everyone else.

was talking at work about Game of Thrones and asked a woman what she made of it, she said she’d never watched it as it was on past her bedtime and her parents would never stay up,that late, God I felt old!

When I was 29 I had housemates who were 23 and 24, they were very old souls so it luckily worked fine. One night we were watching a film and I said 'doesn't she look like Jackie Kennedy' about someone on screen. They both said 'who?!' so I said 'oh sorry, Jackie O' which again was met with 'who's that?!'. When I said 'oh she was John F Kennedy's wife'...you've guessed it, they didn't know who he was either. I felt really old and was only a few years older than them!

Ages ago,I bought a dress

Pink with cream spots

I tried it on and 'd'p told me i looked like mr blobbys nan

If that wasn't bad enough,I repeated this at work

A sea of blank faces''who's mr blobby?'

They where all too young to remember noels house party

To make it worse,ive managed to break a toe and dp has pulled a muscle so we are both hobbling around the house like we're in our 90's

😱😱😱 I feel like it was only on last year ….

I was trying on new glasses frames and the assistant said they made
me look younger. That’s just another way of saying you look old!

Also I went for a coffee with a new young 20-something colleague and we got to know each other. On hearing I did natural sciences at uni she said “I thought there was something school-teacher-ish about you”! (I was in a sweaty betty dress that I didn’t think look conservative at all.)

Yeah but in the same way, the 90s were ten years ago sooo……….

When I got call Ma’am in America. Surely I should be a Miss?!

I was watching the autumn rugby tests on the TV in 2024. England v Australia. Feeling old went something like this:

England try - Sleightholme. Lovely. Hammers down the left wing, smash, try.

Sleightholme. Hmmm. Oh, is Jon Sleightholme still playing? Remember watching him at Bath some years ago.

No.

It was his son Ollie, then aged 24.

Oh.

Sigh.

I got asked if I’d ever had balloons and thought they meant like the inflatable type for a kids party rather than the inhaling type (I still don’t know what they are)

When the 22 year old in the office asked me how my Christmas was and if I cooked Christmas dinner. I’m 39 and have an 8 year old but it suddenly hit me that people see me as a grown up 🤣 in my eyes it’s still something my mum does (she’s the real grown up haha).

To be honest I don't get a lot of this. I can understand not being able to imagine living a certain way or thinking things are easier now. But I grew up with mobiles and the internet (not from being a baby but from quite a young age ). I also know that before then people (shock ! ) did things differently and don't faint in astonishment when they mention phone boxes, type writers, record players and pre decimal currency. I know about events and music from before I was born too. I don't think this can be just put down to me getting older and more experienced because I've known since I was at least a teen. Do Gen Z really spend all their time going "wow there was a time before 2005 ? Who knew ?" And not having any curiosity ? Surely they can't all have such narrow horizons ?

Love this thread. I was offended recently when someone asked if I was thinking about retirement. I’m 54 !!

I struggle standing at gigs too... At two different gigs last week, there were unexpected seats round the side - absolute bonus! However, went to a day rave/club (3pm til 11pm) in a warehouse last weekend and I couldn't stand up by the end of the night 😭 I'm 47 and have a fairly hardcore gym habit FFS! 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤣 It's not fitness linked apparently....

I think they’re often used as more secure!

My teens regularly tell me they wish they'd lived through the 80s/90s. They've been brought up on 80s and 90s music and films, and wish they'd known those days of no mobile phones and more freedom 😔