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

A young woman offered me her seat on the subway today (I declined because I had two stops left) because she saw me grimacing every time the car lurched (from whatever this nerve/muscle horseshit is that's taking forever to get tested and diagnosed).

I think a lot more people have a fully-formed version of who they are at 20 as compared to 30

It would seem to follow that a lot of people at 20 are wrong!

I think I pretty obviously reversed what I wanted to say there

or I was completely incoherent, let's try again:

Many people form their adult personas post age 20, and if they are married and/or have kids early, that is more likely to become a part of their self-image. If you get married after 30 or later, you're more likely to bring more assumptions to the table.

On the flip side, you could say that people who do these things at a later age are just stodgy and unwilling to make changes.

regardless, getting mad at someone because they would rather spend time with their kids than you is a little weird

No argument there. I mean, it sucks for me that a bunch of my friends are going "see you in 18 years!" but if they will have sex without clearing it with me...

I think getting mad at someone because they would ALWAYS rather spend time with their kids (who are over 10) is entirely understandable.

I think the worst is the idea that one spouse can't have time away from the other and kids unless it's something important. I'm pretty sure my friend doesn't have to rush home every day after work, and that he could plan something with friends, and it doesn't have to be as rigidly-defined as an important activity. Sometimes people just need time with friends, or to themselves.

The feeling that both people are supposed to always be home in the evening and stare at each other or at the kid is kind of irritating. Some people genuinely do find their kids important enough to always want to be there, and in that case... yeah, probably going to have to write them off for some social bits.

My kids are way cooler and more entertaining than anyone i've worked with..

My TV is way cooler and more entertaining than anyone i've ever worked with

I think yeah that might go back to "This kid is the mark we make on the world, we must not fuck this up" (lol good luck) vs "This kid is another entry on an already interesting CV".

people fuck up both approaches, imo

My baby makes me feel something along the lines of 24 or 25. I just feel like I have this whole life ahead of me and anything can happen, tons of energy. Then I remember I am ......geez can't even bring myself to type it out....41. Then I feel old and start thinking when she is ten I will be, when she is twenty I will be. Then I think how close I am to my grandmother, she was 41 when I was born and I keep forgetting she is in her 80's constantly. She seems 65 to me.

apparently posting on ilx keeps us young

I think getting mad at someone because they would ALWAYS rather spend time with their kids (who are over 10) is entirely understandable.

Everything you guys are saying about ppl w kids i pretty much feel that way about ppl when they get steady gf/bfs.

haha u young

Maybe I should put together a poll on "what's the best part about getting old?"

was anyone able to offer up any possible options?!

BECAUSE I AM AT A LOSS

- paul ryan is afraid to mess with u

BECAUSE I AM AT A LOSS

Aero's yer man for this one -- the idea of making a list of reasons I could barely relate to made me irrationally angry.

being old is kindof nice

you know yourself better and you have nicer stuff, youre more certain in your taste and in yourself, you can buy liquor w/o having to show id, you do less stupid and embarrassing stuff

i'll give you the bit about liquor

lol. i won't even give you that... "ID ME, ASSHOLE!"

i *do* have nicer stuff tho.

stupid and embarrassing stuff sometimes happens after i buy liquor

I shaved last week and got id'ed for a couple days... feeling pretty young

Put some pants on

I got carded once recently (I'm 32) in a fancy beer store where I was buying a $30 beer and two $12 beers. Told they guy that if I was really under 21, I would probably be trying to buy cheaper beer.

And be at 7/11.

I'm sure he never had heard that before *arms crossed*

seriously you guys? do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be? isn't that of massive value? I'm 1) lots smarter: I've read more, understood more of it, no longer feel any need to front like I know stuff I don't know so I'm more eager to learn even though I'm slower at being able to take in new information but actually being able to admit the need to learn seems like a worthwhile tradeoff there; 2) considerably more adept at putting what talents I have to use: I know what I'm good at, I know when what I'm good at needs a shot in the arm like taking a risk of some kind, and I'm more genuinely self-critical than at least I was when I was younger: young people say "oh, I suck" or whatever but that's not being self-critical: my tools of evaluation are stronger, and I understand them better; 3) more realistic and able to accept my limitations: I can now say "you know what, that guy is loads smarter on this subject than me, let me just listen to him" instead of digging in my heels in every fuckin conflict I get in. What does this do for my life? Makes it inestimably richer. The humility that comes with age, the real kind of humility that can own up to having become adept and some stuff without feeling puffed-up about it, is fucking gold imo. Get old. Get real old. It's nice.

nb none of this applies to the politics thread where I am still a child forever

The nice thing about age, unless you're actually unintelligent or very self-centered, is you begin to recognize how much you don't know, can't know, and will never know. And then vote to make sure you stratify what you do know into law so other people can't fuck with your tiny world.

yeah but to me it's the difference between getting older and getting *old* xp

I guess that works unless you realize you're not nearly as good at anything as you'd like to be. And everything hurts. xxxp

worst parts of aging = physical
best parts of aging = social/psychological

Tough going when the psyche is a nest of squirming miseries and the downsides start to crop up and the advantages aren't there to fall back on.

do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be?

i know more facts (at least until i forget them) now, but i feel my ability and desire to learn new things/work things out have atrophied.

which is no doubt my fault -- no one made me stop doing calculus or whatever -- but still.

Growing old is the best. Wouldn't have it any other way.

I guess that works unless you realize you're not nearly as good at anything as you'd like to be. And everything hurts. xxxp

oh hush mr beats-himself-up, I've read your writing on film, you know you're good

seriously you guys? do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be? isn't that of massive value?…

i do, but it's torturous. i feel like all it's accomplished is to open my eyes to how ignorant and stupid so much of this planet is.
i'm not saying I wish I was dumb (or more so); but there seems to be an emotional drawback to understanding the world better, I guess.

see, the more I learn, the more I realize that I am still widely ignorant and capable of stupid things, some of which I will only realize were stupid when I'm older still

I'm part of this planet, too

I guess that works unless you realize you're not nearly as good at anything as you'd like to be. And everything hurts. xxxp

oh hush mr beats-himself-up, I've read your writing on film, you know you're good

― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 18:31 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

momentarily excited by misreading this as i've read you're writing a film, a hypothetical i'm mourning the loss of, but yeah i mean the-existence-of-morbs OTM

seriously you guys? do some of you legitimately feel like you are not smarter now than you used to be? isn't that of massive value?

no. i know a lot more than i used to and am a bit wiser i suppose (not that you'd really notice), but i used to be a hell of a lot sharper. cognitive tasks that were once easy for me, like the construction of elegant sentences, have become laborious and often ultimately impossible tasks. i can't remember shit. i struggle with dense texts. i was never the sharpest tool in the shed, but my thinking seems so hobbled now.

I'll tell you what's cool about being old: being an uncle.

otm

I was just thinking this morning that I expect to look back on my mid-30s as a time when I threw off a lot of ideas that weren't helping me and really, deeply UNDERSTOOD more things. I can't wait to look back and see that this is where my life changed--if not in actual happenings, at least in interior ways.

yeah, learning to do less, better

I'm sad about the death of my younger physical self as I've droned on about before, but otoh my body is still so capable and I'm getting prouder and prouder of it, paradoxically as it gets less "desirable."

Adults always told and showed me in a lot of ways that if you got old ("old") as a single person, you'd become set in your ways and inflexible and selfishly unable to sustain loving relationships, and I just want to smh @ all of them and marvel at how hard they worked to undermine the whole idea of finding your boundaries and asking for what you need and making sure you get it and not just re-molding yourself into any old shape that comes along.