Younger friend makes age related comments

[Abitannoying]

I have a friend who is 20 years younger than me whom I get on well with, and I think she is a lovely person.

However practically every time I speak to her she manages to make comments relating to my age. Examples:

I should ask my dc to show me how to do something on the Internet.

Things were different dating wise in “my time”. She uses that phrase - in “your time”.

She has a 41 year old friend whom she says is “still attractive” - that 41 year old friend is 10 years younger than me.

She makes a lot of comparisons and draws parallels between me and a client of hers who is older than me - between 10 and 20 years older - regarding computer literacy for example. Not saying she should be making these comments about her client either.

Maybe I am being over sensitive? I find myself bracing myself for the comments now.

Disclaimers - I realise I might be over sensitive. I also know that of course I am a lot older than my friend. And, nothing wrong with any age, but I don’t like the assumptions she appears to make. Regarding computer literacy, attractiveness, and general pigeon holing / generalisations.
I really don’t need my dc to explain the very simple IT thing she was talking about.

I guess I find her somewhat patronising and I am not sure how to respond.

I have the opposite problem. An older friend always assuming I am their age 'in our day' or 'we didn't have this when we were kids' 'too many years of cheese and wine'

... I've just turned 30 and friend is almost 50. I like friend very much but there is a big gap in our ages, we are different generations.

@AtrociousCircumstance

No, you are not over sensitive - your friend is enjoying undermining you because it makes her feel superior to you.

She’s not a friend. I wouldn’t spend another minute in the company of someone who undermined me so constantly and so casually.

Hang out with people who aren’t idiots and don’t make you feel rattled.

This.

If she's enough of a friend, then you can be honest, and tell her to stop it, it's upsetting you. If she doesn't then dump her.

I think that is very rude. I have quite a few friends that are older than me because they seem to match me more in maturity. The age gap rarely comes up.

She sounds very immature. I'm not sure I'd want to continue on such a friendship but if you want to try I think you should bring it up the next time she makes one of these comments. See if she changes her behaviour. If she does, great. If not, well...

I wonder if it's a difference in perspective on how important the age thing is in your relationship.
So to you she is a friend who happens to be 20 years younger than you (ie you treat her as the same as you within the friendship)
but to her you are someone 20 years older than her who she happens to be friends with ( so within the friendship she is always a little bit aware that you are not the same as her because of the age gap).

When she makes the comments it brings her view to the front and hurts your feelings more because you would never comment on her age in this way.

I think you should call her on it...in a jokey way as others have said, but every time it happens eg 'I know you think I'm ancient but I think I can manage that'. But if you don't want to spend your time with someone who sees you as 'older' and brings it up from time to time then it might be time to back off.

I wonder if it's a difference in perspective on how important the age thing is in your relationship

Yes maybe this is what is going on.

Maybe it is about her not feeling young young any more, I don't know. But yeah, with friends and family of different ages, I wouldn't normally make a thing of their age. You kind of assume that people might take offence, or it wouldn't cross your mind to do it.

[Unless it's my Dad of course and then all jokes are fair game . Or my kids asking me if dinosaurs were around when I was a child .]

The thing about her telling me that people deserve to be loved no matter how old they are or what they look like - yes I know this is true, but the implication must have been that I didn't look great - IMO. Obviously I don't look 20 years younger than I am, but I look fine. I would argue that people can be and are attractive at any age. But maybe if you are in your 20s and early 30s you genuinely can't see this? Far kinder to tell someone you think they are attractive, or tell them what you think is attractive about them. Unless of course she really doesn't think there is anything to say . That's what I would do in that situation and if having that kind of conversation - boost someone's confidence by telling them all the things that I find attractive. Not that they should be loved despite looking "old" and unattractive (was the implication, maybe I am wrong).

But yeah, if she does more of it I will make another lighthearted comment, and if I end up finding it too annoying that somehow I feel "less than", I will phase things out. Plenty of other people around who don't do that.

I think to the ones you mention I would say things like 'I'm ok on the computer actually, maybe people who are older than me sometimes struggle with it but I don't.' (Anyway, my mum is better than me at some technology and she's 73.)

I agree that around 30 some people are sensitive about their age and can try and emphasize the difference between them and anyone older, still try and consider themselves to be 'young-young' etc.

People can make more barbed comments about age than those you mention.

As a PP said, depending how barbed it is, I'd maybe say 'It can be kind of bad luck to mock someone for being older. I knew a guy who did that and he died at 21' or something.

I know you've said the comments you mentioned aren't all the comments, but for instance that guy said 'you're no spring chicken yourself, are you?' I was about early 30s at the time!

Another one said 'That's a nice photo- how many years ago was it taken?' ! He just ended up unfriended in the end, but I definitely should've told him it's bad luck.

I work with a 26 year old and she often refers to me and her mum in the same sentence. Thing is her mum is 45 and I am 40 and I have a daughter who is 22 so she has a point, but we are friends outside work so it always smacks a bit!! I bet me and her mum would get on brilliantly!

Pick her upon it. It is ageism.

A colleague described another colleague (Darren) as 'really old'. Hmm, Darren is my age only a couple of months younger.
Nice to know that the whippersnapper is coming up to his 40th.

I called him out on it.

I had this with my SIL who is 2.5 years younger than me 🤣 just before I turned 30 she made a massive deal about how old I was. She’s a bit thick tbh.

Your friend doesn’t seem very nice - I think you should gently call her out on it the next time - like “I do know I’m older than you but it’s a bit patronising to suggest I don’t understand computers - did you mean it that way?”

I'm 29 and one of my reports is 18.

She asked me if I'd ever heard of Rita Ora yesterday.

I was like "fuckinell".

Sounds really annoying. I'm the same age as you, 65 (just joking, also 50), and I'd find this especially annoying because I had my first computer at 14 - even if it was a ZX81 :) - and am very much computer literate. However, part of the annoyance would be that I consider myself more computer literate than many people my age - so it would be hurt pride that she's not taking into account the fact that actually I am better than average!

Eeeer, no. Not on.

I am younger by at least a decade in most of my friendships and I never even think to insult my friends by denigrating them. I respect and care for my friends, then are fun and bring different things to the table. Occasionally they share and I benefit from their experience, in the same way that I might share something they benefit from. Why haven't you told her to STFU if she has nothing positive to say?

I have/had a similar friend. She banged on about IT as though I could barely understand how to make a call in my mobile.

On and on, she makes amusing little "That's an X or a Y for those of us who are a little older" comments. So I told her

I was working in IT, in the pre press industry prior to WYSIWYG, command driven, pre HTML, typesetting and then in R+D design and digitising non Latin typefaces, printer and screen fonts (yes they were different), later, post WYSIWYG, a non Latin version of Word.

I worked with the earliest of PCs, nascent internet, dial up everything, floppy discs, have had the same email and mobile phone number since the mid 90s, longer than she has been alive and I run my business from my mobile phone.

She is on notice, one more silly comment and I won't be responsible for my actions

Either get used to her continually broadcasting her immaturity or stop hanging out with her. If giving advice is part of her job then her listening skills need a lot of work.

Why are you making excuses for her not listening to you?

I agree that around 30 some people are sensitive about their age
and can try and emphasize the difference between them and anyone older

Agree with this. She’s insecure because she’s no longer in the first flush of youth herself and is projecting that insecurity onto you. You could draw up some boundaries and tell her you find it unpleasant.

Agree with PP that she is sensitive about her own age. But no excuse. It's like those girls keeping a "fat friend" around so that in comparison they seem slim and pretty and make themselves feel better.

One jibe I would chalk up to insensitivity and forgive, more than that means she is not a nice person.

I've had this before. Constant nasty comments, o way were they a mistake. Just plain rude. Are you very attractive OP? She may be riled that someone older than her looks better.

And in my case it was to do with a man that was flirting with me. I can only think she liked him, and was jealous.
Sad though it is, women are socialised to compete with each other, especially over men

I was at a group thing once and there was a man in his 20s next to me. He was chatting to the others and said something about 'old people.' Turned to me and said, 'no offence.'

I'm early 40s!

He didn't say it with a smile, he genuinely thought I counted as old-old. II know I look raddled for my age, but even so!

I had this friend who phoned me up when I turned 40 and said in a really spiteful little voice. ..
'So...how does it FEEL to be 40'?... (she was about two years younger!!!)
Later I heard that instead of enjoying her 30th she had spent literally the whole day in tears. Sad.

It wouldn't bother me, but I guess it depends on your relafionship and context. I have a male friend who is 30 years younger than I, and some of the stuff he comes out with regarding my advanced years (52!) has me crying with laughter. That's the sort of relationship we have though, so I understand that in a less piss taking friendship it could be upsetting.

I had this with a colleague the other year. At the time I was 52 and she would be 38. Everytime we said something it 'wasn't my era'. I did have to say things like ' theBeatles went my era but I have still heard of them!'
She was very glam, trendy and loved flicking her hair all the time and liked to be young , but that's another story for another time!

I was talking to another colleague and we made reference to a pink Floyd song, something along the lines of 'the teacher at my school was a right bastardbut we all knew who the boss was when he went home'. The colleague said ' yeah, just like another brick in the wall'. Annoying colleague pipes up' sorry, I'm only really young, I don't get what you are talking about'. Now I can understand her not getting the reference but she jumped in with 'I'm only young' I suspect she knew exactly what we were talking about but wanted the spotlight back on her. I inwardly rolled my eyes because this happens every single time. The other colleague says ' you are not that young anymore and anyway, my 15 year old knows who Pink Floyd are!
Thankfully she piped down after that because it was really becoming wearing!

I think you are being a bit sensitive.

I am mid 50s, and I do get my dc to show me how to do things with technology. I haven't grown up with it and it certainly isn't intuitive to me.
I can also tell you that my dc "do dating" very differently from when I was there age too.

Now, I don't see why she necessarily needs to point these things out randomly, but, in context, she's not wrong.