Get to your fifties and suddenly doing something perfectly normal is "inspirational" to a twenty year old.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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Sometimes I'll be watering my aloe vera and if the neighbour kids are around I'll say something like "things take time to grow" with a mysterious smile and hope they become filmmakers who will credit me in their acclaimed directorial debut at Cannes
My goal is to someday be a mysterious old lady, taking walks alone with a bag of various, nonsensical items over my shoulder.
I want to come across lone hikers, reach into my bag, pull out something random and say, "Take this. It will help you on your journey."
Then walk away into the fog without another word.
I'm looking forward to the day when I'm old enough I can get away with using the phrase "my child" to someone much younger than me, someone who is not in fact my child.
If you want to become a trickster god that fits into current American psyche then the random item should always be a weapon of some kind, ranging from a foam sword to a fully kitted ar-15.
You gotta throw in some contrast and a bit of mystery, maybe the next day come come out in a navy seal hat, cowboy boots and daisy dukes while armed with a buckshot. Then you shoot the pigeons off your roof while yelling: "God damn it Amanda, at least we'll always have Fallujah!"
come out in a navy seal hat, cowboy boots and daisy dukes while armed with a buckshot. Then you shoot the pigeons off your roof while yelling: “God damn it Amanda, at least we’ll always have Fallujah!”
This is how we in Europe imagine an average weekend in American suburbs.
I remember when i was around 21, i went to a bar and we did some heavy drinking. I met a guy in there who was pretty short and quirky. We talked for a bit, he looked around my age. He told me he was 32. I was like: 32?? Holy shit. I walked him around asking random people how old they think he was. And i would answer: WRONG. HE'S 32!!
32 was a comedical old age for me, for someone who looked like that.
Now i'm almost 42 and atill look like 20. It's crazy what you think is old when you're 20. I rememver when my mom asked me if someone was old and i said yes, very, ge was like 40
35 i look late 20ish untill i shave then could pass as an early 20s. But i have the additude of an old pissed off person who is mad at the world. I think its drinking water and having a slow metabolism that keeps me looking younger.
I'm 24 and speaking to a 13 year old makes me feel 45.
I think people have an "age bubble" in their brain they use to recognize people of the same age. The bubble only goes so far. 5, 10, whatever amount of years it may be for a person. So as you age, that bubble comes along and the requirements to decide sometime is young or old move with you.
Lol I just smoked and have no idea if this made any sense. Let me know
I think the age bubble thing is real, but it's got more to do with life stages. I'm in my mid 30s, and a little while ago I was hanging out at a bar and met some people that were 22-24. However, they all had jobs out of high school, and I had an easier time talking to them than a 26 year old grad student I ran into a few months back.
I've always been told I look very young for my age (to the point where 24 year olds commonly talk to me like I'm younger than them) so your mileage may vary. Edit: I guess working 24 year olds. A few years back, I was doing a contract in a, I guess, working man's town. I remember I met a dude and a girl at the bar, and the girl asked me to guess her age. My honest guess was 50, so I said 36. She was like "wow, I'm 37, good guess" and the guy was like "heh, once you get to my age, you'll know to always underestimate. I asked him how old he was. He said 24. He looked older than me. I was 32. Welding and trades really fuck you up.
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yea I think that was brilliant and I'm ready to bet money it's a real anthropology thing
that being said I had an edible
Maybe youre right, maybe you're not. Its probably more so about the shared interests rather than the inherent age.
The thing is, those that are of similar age may have a higher probability of similar interests than those with higher deviation from your age.
I don’t think so, I think age inherently adds context to what you know/are interested in and there absolutely is a point where contextually speaking you’re no longer peers, you can definitely still be friendly/friends but it feels different from being friends with a person who shares the same context to your interests. I was recently talking to a young man about music and he’s into pop-punk, the same genre I was into when I was in highschool, and I was talking to him about all the influences I heard from those bands in the music he listens to and he couldn’t share that insight, not that it wasn’t an interesting conversation but it felt more like I was in a mentor position teaching him about his interest rather that equally sharing and exploring the interest. I think in depth knowledge can make up this gap and erase the age factor but in general the context around the interest does change and does matter when it comes to connecting
That's because a lot of youth language has more to do with year of birth than with age. I fades out a bit but I will still say stuff I said as a teenager and people who were my current age back then identified as youth language. I'm sure there is youth slang from decades or centuries ago, we think of standard today
I'm 43 and teach at a college as my side gig, and it blows my mind that I've got college students who were in diapers at the end of the Bush administration.
There's so much overlap between millennial and genz humor that the only time I feel like this is when talking about personal finance, but even then a lot of my age peers are just as clueless.
Same - at 42, I feel alright with my 25 yo colleagues. Getting wasted together in hotels after conferences might have taken it's role, but this is a clessic way to break walls, so I'm not cheating!
21 is old, unc status. 22 is young. 25 is old, gramps status. 30 you are basically dead.
At 40 you're 
I turn 29 in 19 days 💀
Congrats, kiddo! 30 is a good year! Also, you’ll be 40 in only ten years!
I'm 39. I turned 30 three years ago.
Ah, the Millenial age math!
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They burry you shortly after you are born now...
...after devouring your flesh.
They have AI, and a perfect selection if humans after all.
Only in 30s here, but every summer at my old job we had 16 year olds coming in for a temp job between school and college. Every summer I would get excited about the new intake because theres finally people my age I can talk to. Every year I realised some of my classmates have kids older than these guys.
Every fucking year on that rollercoaster.
I remember being the youngest at my first job. Started at 18, worked there three years straight, and I was the youngest the whole time.
Now I work with people who were born after I graduated high school. I assume it stops feeling weird at some point, but I'm not there yet.
For me I feel 25 until I try to walk up two flights of stairs.
You might want to exercise more...
laughs in having been paralyzed and chronic pain
Arguably that has nothing to do with one's physical age tho... but good to laugh at regardless? 😜
Yeah... That's true.
Nahh I was already considered ancient I was 15. Once you've already felt that initial shock, you don't feel it anymore.
Wait till you hit 70. Biggest shock of my life.
I'll be 60 this year - that's looming fucking huge. For some reason 50 didn't really bother me but 60 really sounds old. And yet half the time I still feel half my age. It's almost like most of ageing is realising what old people mean when they say they don't feel old.
I've been 60 for half-a-year now. When people ask how old I am, I tell them 67, because I like them to say I look pretty good for 67. I do look pretty good for 67.
Great idea! I'm going to start telling people I'm 78. I look pretty bloody amazing for 78.
You still care? You don't go into higher age categories anymore. You just get more admired the older you are.
I didn't think I'd care - I breezed past 60 - but I find that I do. It's partly that I've teetered into the category of "elderly". It's partly that The End is looming. My mother died at 90. Dementia took her last five years. I'm 73. I try not to do the maths.
Yes, it's true you "get more admired". "Isn't she marvellous for her age!!" Boak.
The end depends on how rich you are nowadays.
Ive felt old since I was 19 so ive never felt out of place!
Since I was 16 here. I kind of gave up on life in my teens, I didn't see a future, and was just praying I would get to see what it's like to be 18 before I die.
I feel thats probably true for a lot of younger people. When I was growing up the future wasnt as bleak.
Also getting out of bed and injuring yourself
Also doing a full sprint from 0 without stretching
Is it weird I've never felt this way?
I'm in my 40s but pass for 25. So my 20 year old colleagues would talk to me like a child and I'd tell them I'm old enough to be their mother, the little whippersnappers.
I have never vibed with Wendy Oldbag so much.
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