Poll: what's the worst part of getting old?

really, is it spelled pastime??

pastyime

nasty in the pasty(time)

Yeah its pastime. And yeah I agree, i hate going to say, an indie club and feeling like a lame old chancer. It blows. I'm still 21 dammit!

i hate going to say, an indie club at all at my age, too loud and young people are annoying and gross

Ha yes well, that as well.

The last few times ive gone to a goth club I've been all "jesus turn it down, and wtf is with this smoke machine bullshit and WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE". And i hated it.

Having to visit my grandmother in a retirement home on the closed second floor is depressing. Yesterday I was sitting in the communal (?) room and everyone just sat there drooling or shouting. My grand has alzheimer and parkinson. She knows who I am but otherwise she remembers very little about the day before or when, for example, my mother was born. I do feel a bit sad but then again she was a super bitch. Now she's soft and easy. But still... this is sth I would hate: in diapers, drooling and being carted off to your room by a stranger. The world passes by and you just wait to die.

Going out clubbing is absolutely the one. I'm sure it's perfectly acceptable in London to go to a club at 31, but in my hometime it's strictly for the yout'. I went to check out a little club thing above a pub the other week and felt like a complete goon every time I tried to dance.

geez I only *started* clubbing around 29-30.

Getting turned off to going to clubs/parties is a GOOD THING imo. Getting old (31) has allowed me the freedom to indulge my anti-social tendencies and now that i people no longer call me to asking 'what's going on tonight?' I have the freedom to just chill at home, read a book, play some videogames, etc. Stuff I'd really rather do!

Also, when i go out, it's a far more meaningful experience, and I'm just someone who personally WANTED to go out in a sea of people that MUST go out in order to fulfill some social contract.

But going out and dancing to choons is my favourite thing ever. Like Trayce I really don't feel like I'm anywhere close to reaching for my pipe and slippers yet. Problem is, most of my friends ARE and would much rather have each other round for a meal and a glass of wine, or they're too busy preparing for weddings, babies etc, or they're mentally ill or they're just too damn tired etc. Equally, if I ever get the opportunity to go to a club, I not only feel self-conscious about being older and fatter and less cool than everyone else, but I can't stand the braying little shits either.

maybe it's time to start dancing with a new crowd

http://mauricemcleod.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/tea_dance_o_large.jpg

what a drag it is getting old

i'm 27 and i sometimes feel like an old codger when i'm out at clubs, though less so at club clubs than at the various indistinguishable twee-ish indie nights i sometimes find myself at. heaven knows how self-conscious i'll be when i hit my next decade. after something sparked a little facebook stalking of school friends, though, i think i'm doing okay on the ageing front. sure i'm greying rapidly and my facial hair is slowly making its way up to my eyes, but i think under my beard i'd still look youthful and spry and in serious need of a real form of identification.

what a drag it is getting old

otm

-getting sleepy when I have a couple of beers :(
-wearing earplugs to concerts. I used to be tuff and now I'm like aaagggh my eeeeaaars
-teenagers wearing neon plastic sunglasses >:(

i'm going to be this person:
INFORMATION ALERT: 27 is not old
srsly ALL i did when i was 27 was go dancing and drink/drugs and go to work whatever and hang out with friends/bf!
then i went to grad school and started getting old, but all in all, ime, it takes a while and i'm nowhere near there yet. i still go dancing that's for sure.

i'm still under 40 but i know plenty of 40somethings who go dancing (to electronic music), tho they are more selective about it

Eh not really otm. I think growing old is rad.

Never really seen any ageist stuff in my time.

still rep for Growing hair where you don't want to grow it -- it's not a big deal, i guess, but i fail to see the evolutionary advantage that has led to it

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

I'm really freaked out my my flesh taking on a different character. I grab my calf and squeeze and it looks pliable and ugh I'll stop

Definitely one of the best threads I ever started.

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

this is it. mine passed relatively young, in their 60s, but everybody i know these days (my wife & all my peers) is dealing with aging/ailing parents. it's like the final step before facing yr own mortality.

INFORMATION ALERT: 27 is not old

ha, i'm well aware of this objectively, my criteria for judging myself rarely correspond with my general opinions or how i think of others. tho in the last year i've actually gone out a lot more than ever previously, while also being at grad school. i'm fighting a two-way battle between accepting that i'm young and accepting that i'm (however gradually) getting old.

despite the fatalistic tone of my last post yes WmC this thread is classic, thoughtful and instructive

yeah my mom just turned 69 the other day and my dad is 76. he's in great shape; it's harder to tell with her because of wading through endless complaints.

but there's just me, i don't live near them, and i don't have any money to speak of. and while i love my parents, i find visiting them to be unpleasant, mainly due to the hoarding. it is going to suck.

i'm 27 and i sometimes feel like an old codger when i'm out at clubs

I beg you not to waste your time feeling like an old codger before you're, say, 40. I get that it's an actual feeling - everybody does it, starts to "feel old" when their teenage years begin to feel remote - but 27 is unbelievably, super-powerfully, ridiculously young. any minute of your 27th year which you squander imagining that the wistful feeling you have is "feeling old" - man, find a way to give me that minute so I can do something properly youthful with it

right now I think the worst part of getting old is neurology staff not giving me the info I need to authorize an MRI in a timely fashion when I've been limping since mid-June. Not part of my worry list when I was 27.

under-aero OTM.

I beg you not to waste your time feeling like an old codger before you're, say, 40

Yeah I was going to say something like this. Your 20s and 30s are your freaking PEAK! Do not lament them as age. You will know actual age when it comes, trust me. That time sure as shit aint it.

Heck I'm still trying to feel ok with relative youth at 41, ffs.

At 31 I don't feel old at all, I just feel frustrated that many of my peers act as though they're getting on, and yet I can tell I'm not quite on the same level as the younger people I work with/hang out with.

20s the peak....not sure i buy that. I think it's like playing music when high; you think it's amazing and everything you do is incredible and just untouchable, but objectively, it's a bunch of wasted, self-indulgent BS. The youth culture part of the 20s, going out to parties, going to clubs, drunking/drugging all the time, "What are you doing tonight?" "What's going on this weekend?" non-stop social maintenance and all that is white noise. Nice stuff at the moment that it's going on, but yeah fleeting things that aren't real and don't have any lasting value for your life.

okay FINE, i'll be young! but also okay with ageing. one thing ilx has been very good for showing me, something that previous generations of young people probably haven't had much experience of, is that people can remain interesting and engaged and exciting as they get older. even if they're THIRTY!

Watching your parents and family get old, that is without a doubt the worst part. Not missing out on drinking a beer with a bunch of random people that are only there to drink beer and score cool points.

you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan
and the next five years trying to be with your friends again

32 is awesome. It will only get better from here.

20s the peak....not sure i buy that. I think it's like playing music when high; you think it's amazing and everything you do is incredible and just untouchable, but objectively, it's a bunch of wasted, self-indulgent BS. The youth culture part of the 20s, going out to parties, going to clubs, drunking/drugging all the time, "What are you doing tonight?" "What's going on this weekend?" non-stop social maintenance and all that is white noise. Nice stuff at the moment that it's going on, but yeah fleeting things that aren't real and don't have any lasting value for your life.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 10 August 2012 01:55 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Depends where your priorities lie really. Yes going down the pub and getting pissed all the time is pretty meaningless, but then equally so is staying at home and playing computer games. By my mid '20s I was turning my social life into a productive pastime by organising gig and club nights, using my circle of friends to promote shows &c. &c. and having loads of fun while I was at it. So it wasn't all soulless pisswalling, and certainly more productive than many other things I could have been doing.

I work with someone who regularly makes comments about being old and needing wrinkle cream/plastic surgery. (She is 28.) She asked me if I was upset when I turned 30 so I told "Nope!!" I should have said "no, it's awesome."

reduced energy levels is a weird winner to me. i don't care about that, i didn't have much energy when i was younger either!

I have grey hair in my goatee and it is really, really distressing

I might shave the whole thing off despite my wife's objections

A friend and I - who are both still under 40 and therefore young!!! - recently & independently both noticed feeling tired after concerted or prolonged mental effort. I suppose it's no different from feeling knackered after a decent bout of exercise, which isn't something you notice so much when you're younger, but it's a curious thing to suddenly be aware of.

lol djp i'm almost a decade younger than you and i have mad gray hairs in my sideburns. which i don't even mind at all because graying feels a lot less lame than having a receding hairline.

p. sure the worst part is going to be dealing with the decline of my parents tho

Yeah. It's hard emotionally because I love them and it sucks to see them start to fail in small but fundamental ways. But also practically speaking, I'm an only child and my parents live in a place that I never, ever want to live again and have made it abundantly clear that they will not submit to residential nursing care, nor will they move to Chicago to live with me. When I'ved asked what solution they propose, they respond, "Just take me out back and shoot me!" but that's not likely to happen.

i love the grey in my temples a) bc i still have tons of hair so who cares what color it is and b) i get to tell ppl the story of Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria who said "i am like a man of 70" and the story goes that he was actually like 18 and a great scholar but no one respected him bc of his age so god made his hair go grey early so that ppl would respect his opinions.

lol djp i'm almost a decade younger than you and i have mad gray hairs in my sideburns. which i don't even mind at all because graying feels a lot less lame than having a receding hairline.

I think I'm just mad because neither of my parents started going noticeably grey until they were well into their 50s

Although now that I think about it, my dad sported a boss 70s mustache up until I was about 7 or 8 and he was 40-41, after which he started going clean-shaven; maybe his facial hair started greying then too and I was just too young to notice

I am not super concerned about thinning hair/receding hairlines because I basically have shaved my head for the past 20 years and I know I look good bald

DJP I've never seen you in the flesh but you're painting a pretty badass picture of yourself

as Seinfeld taught us baldness only looks good as a choice xp

My lolcoworkers were in the car on the way back from lunch one day and one mentioned his son asked what getting old is like and his answer was "It hurts."

So yeah, aches and pains and not bouncing back quite as quickly as you did in youth.