This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

depends on how many other people are at the establishment
if 0, sure go ahead and take it personally if you must
if many, cut some slack? it's probably not about you.

Exactly… I had this experience in my 20s … it definitely isn’t middle age

I had this experience once, in an airport Dunkin Donuts, when absolutely no one else was in line or being served. I gave it a minute, then left and just got coffee and OJ somewhere else.

(I’m 47 - this happened maybe two years ago)

This can reflect the invisibility of the single person - rather than the older person, ime.

A younger coworker started a coed recreational kickball team a few years ago, I was already in my forties and said to myself, I used to play lots of kickball when I was young, I’ll join and show these kids how it’s done. Well pretty early on in the season I kicked as hard as I could and pulled my quad so badly I thought I tore something. My leg swelled up and I could barely walk for weeks. I finally recovered in time for the playoffs, so of course I joined back up, and of course in my first at-bat I re-pulled my quad just as badly as the first time. I gave up on sports after that, I guess I’m too old. Nowadays I am getting ready to buy a pair of readers because I am sick of goggling blindly at fine print.

Not to be a dick, but some pretty
simple stretching can go a long way in that regard. I am 39– I stretch for 15 minutes every morning, and intend on doing so until I die

This can reflect the invisibility of the single person - rather than the older person, ime.

― Dr Drudge (Bob Six)

there are _so many different kinds_ of invisibility haha

it's something i struggle a lot with. am i being treated worse than the other people around me? am i being ignored? if so, _why_?

the whole phenomenon of the "karen" - to me it's kind of one response to not being _acknowledged_. it's one of the things that makes "passing" so hard for me - the way women of a certain age tend to be treated. there are _very much_ gendered differences here, ime.

women, like... we gotta learn to not take being ignored personally, even if there are, you know... even if we are being ignored _because_ we're women in our '40s. cuz if we don't that's when we get called "karens".

The invisibility experience for me was more surreal than anything else, a “am I on Candid Camera?” feeling.

(I didn’t throw a fit or anything - just stood there for a minute or two accepting that this was happening, or not happening, before floating away to another business.)

“Am I really alive? Am I a ghost?”

And while I haven’t worked in the service industry for many, many years, I get that these are repetitive, demanding jobs, and that the 6-7 people working at the combination DD/Baskin Robbins had been grinding since 5 am and were likely burnt to the point that I, a 6’4 black man, just might not have registered in the moment

i had my ear surgery last week. it was a big deal and i assume there are lots of people out there who have the same issue, but live in a place where the diagnosis would not have happened and the surgeon wouldn't live in their town. kind of got mad at him because right when i woke up post surgery he tells me for the first time that i'm not allowed to blow my nose for 10 days. mfer, it's mid April and pollen is everywhere. i have literal scabs on my nose from blowing it so much. not sure if it's a 40s thing, but my allergies have gone from 0 to 100 in the last few years

how's ya hearing?

I hope your surgery went well, Heez. Rather frequently, my right ear gets completely clogged up and I also cannot pick out individual speakers or tell where sounds are coming from. It really struck me how having even just a marginally difficult time hearing can immediately feel isolating.

Getting old is so f’in weird

Seconded.

Hope I don’t die soon!

Planning to live to 90 like my grandparents done did

Every time I get carded I’m like, “this is the last time I’m gonna get carded”

/romero

last got ID'd in Morrisons of all places when I was 40. I assume that will be the last time unless I go back to the USA at some point or somewhere else where they card OAPs

I get that they think I’m a narc…I guess

fell in the bathtub this morning. cut my chin open. i wouldn't call it a serious fall, but at my age i can't just brush off falls like i could when i was younger. scariest thing is that i live by myself. i mean i don't feel like i'm the age where i'd want a lifealert bracelet or something but yeah, if i seriously hurt myself by accident it'd be a while before anybody came to check. had a pretty bad fall last december... was on my way out to an event, it was icy, forgot something upstairs, went up the outside stairs too quickly and banged myself up. still went to the event, though, without even so much as cleaning myself up. i guess i can say i'm learning - i wouldn't do that today. i think the fall back in december was probably worse. hard to say. it's getting around. my balance has never been good. i had a fall in my garage back in '19 and my ankle stability has been really bad ever since.

anyway my QPP is gonna be over in a bit to check... in the meantime i'm just shook... got a towel in my mouth waiting for the bleeding to stop.

I turned 40 last week. Woof. For some perspective, I started reading ILX as a teenager so not only am I old, we’re all old.

I was 20 at the beginning and now 44, so I feel every year of that comment.

welcome, Allen