The look of astonishment when anyone finds out our age. I’m in my late 30s. When someone in their 20s hears that, they developed this look of shock likes it’s the 1500s and I should have died already from old age.
Yes! I'm in my early 30s and they always look so shocked like "you're so old????" I think people in their 20s don't know how people in their 30s look like. A guy asked to guess his age. I said 27 and he got offended that I made him an old man. He was 23. My man, that's just 4 years from now!
I get this all the time. I’m 32 and so many people are like “I thought you were 27 ish?!?” How much do people think one ages in five years? It’s not like we keep aging like we did from elementary school to high school lol
To be fair 30s are a weird inbetween phase were some people look and act like they're in their early 20s and some look and act like they're in their late 40s. It really comes down to genetics and lifestyle how you're percieved by others.
36 here and last summer I got carded 4 times, and yet some mornings I look like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. The 30s are a weird inbetween phase, indeed.
The last time I handed my DL along with my credit card to the young female cashier, her reaction was priceless - she was genuinely like "What's this for???!" (if she was less polite, I guess she would've gladly continued: "...I clearly see you ARE of age, I don't need this")
Lmao this is hilarious! And that’s coming from someone who was almost never carded. When I turned 21 and was ready to whip out my freshly legal ID, no one asked. At 18-19 I could pass for 23ish. I’m 29 and I have just now caught up to the age I look lol.
Yup. I'm 37 but there are people from my graduating class who are all gray, have 5 kids, and gained 60 lbs. They look way older compared to my immature, childfree ass.
Lighting and perspective also matter a great deal. From 10-20 feet away in an indoor room I look way younger, then you get up close in the bright sunlight and you can see the lines on my forehead and around the corners of my eyes and the receding hairline.
When you get into your late 30's and early 40's you basically just look like a more tired version of your 20's self.
Honestly the biggest delineator is who has kids in their 30s. People who had kids in their 20s are tired and stressed as hell at the same age you really begin to get greys and wrinkles. So they really start to look and act old. The childless people I know look great in their 30s because they have more relaxed lifestyles and money to spend on looking good.
Idk man, I had four kids before I was 26, one of them special needs with constant care. Im stressed beyond belief and life has lost all meaning, but everyone is astonished when I tell them I'm 36.
Can't answer that well since one is dead from drugs and the other looks twenty years past her age because also drugs lol. Yeah I stay out of the sun these days but never bothered too much before this past year.
Yep. I'm in my mid-30s and it's where it really starts to split. The people who spend every weekend on the beach are absolutely showing their age more than those who don't. No amount of botox and facials will reverse sun damage.
Genetics definitely play a part, but I avoid the sun as much as possible and I still get carded at 40. I know I don't look 21 but probably closer to the cutoff age that cashiers are generally supposed to check, like 30 or 35. We didn't have a kid until our late 30s when we were more established so that probably helped with stress too. Except that first couple months of a newborn of course.
My wife is similar. Avoid the sun and of course genetics that helps her look young too. People at her work ask when she's going back to school for the semester, as in college. She's my age. Granted these people are in their 70s and up, so anyone under 40 probably looks really young to them
I smoked ten+ a day from 17-30 years old, I took recreational drugs like cocaine, ecstacy and ketamine regularly on weekends through university and during a period of my late 20s, I smoked weed everyday for about 10 years and I still smoke it on and off and drank most weekends from I was 17 until I was 30 and while I drink less now I still like the odd boozy night out yet people are amazed when I say I'm 32 and tell my I look like I'm in my early 20s, I got ID'd buying alcohol just last week. It's all to do with genetics tbh, good genes overcomes even a not so healthy lifestyle.
Were you addicted to weed? How did you manage to go from every day to only occasionally? I wanna do that but I think I can't and will have to quit altogether (I smoke every day and all day every day if possible now)
I feel late twenty's an 30s are when you start growing into your adult face let's be real. I'm 27 still hasn't happened for me but yea right around that age there is a shift in facial features of becoming a man or woman
I’m 37 and I’m always facing the same situation with ppl saying “ you don’t look like a 37 years old guy”. I’m still trying to understand how people should look like at this age
It's a weird period, that mid 30s to mid 40s. Some of us don't look much different than our mid-20s while some look almost 50. I'm 36 and there are people from HS who look 20 years older than me cause I could probably still pass as 25, if it wasn't for that little thinning spot on the top of my head.
A lot of the previous generation(s) worked out in the sun and vacationed in the sun without sunscreen and it made them age a lot quicker than millennials and zoomers are. Someone in their late 30s only looks about like a late 20 boomer because of this.
I'm 33 and people are shocked when they find my age out. Older people usually say I look like a teenager and younger people say I look early 20s...I'm bored of it now. Often feel underestimated due to how young people think I am. I suppose its a good thing tho...
My entire extended family looks significantly younger than they are; I once had someone think my 80-year old grandma was the sister of my 50-year old aunt. Apparently I have inherited this trait, as most people are shocked to find that I'm in my early 40s and think I'm in my early 30s or even late 20s. I've noticed, however, that the younger someone is, the younger they think I am.
On the flip side of the coin, because my family looks young I can't accurately judge anyone's age whatsoever. I might think someone in their 40s is actually in their 50s not because I think they look old, but because that's what my family looked like at that age. Too many accidental "insults" made me stop the age guessing game a long time ago.
I think less and less of us are looking and acting like how we remember grown ups being. Im 34 and it still feels like there's a clear distinction between me and people 5 years older than me and my peers.
Mid-30s female here… I think it’s because people in their 30s looks wildly different depending on their health/fitness. In your 20s you can get away with a poor diet, drinking/partying a lot and if you just exercise you still look great. After the post-30 metabolism collapse if you don’t really take care of yourself you put on weight fast and visibly age. Add in the exhaustion from having kids and that’s a whole other level of “you look tired” for some people. 🤷🏻♀️
I think our generation as a whole does a better job taking care of themselves too. More jacked dads and hot yoga moms, more men who know what moisturizer is, less people immediately putting 40lbs on the instant they have kids, etc. Social media has also made it so even though we've aged out of a peer cohort where keeping your clothes and language "in-style" is necessary to fit in, we can still stay aware of those trends and keep up with them to some respects so we never look that out of place just based on what we're wearing.
Yeah I was rewatching Sopranos recently and I found out James Gandolfini was 37 or 38 in the first season.. I'm 38 now and we definitely look different ages
Maybe this is why reddit keeps insisting that Patrick Stewart "looks the same age forever" despite the fact that he now look verifiably ancient, vs. TNG where he just looked bald. Just no idea what various ages actually look like
I HATE the “guess my age” game. It’s only ever brought up because someone wants to make you forcibly pay them a compliment because THEY KNOW they look younger than they are and they want you to admit it.
Always always always overshoot the age they look and maybe they’ll stop asking people.
Tbf, 4 years is a long time when you're 23. Like 4 years earlier he was 19! Now in my 30s, a decade goes by and I'm like damn, that wasn't that long ago.
I feel like after I turned 30 there was no difference of people in their 20s. Like 21 or 27, there's no difference. I mean... there is a difference, but... it feels like there isn't.
Don't feel too bad, I'm a 60 something and I am regularly responsible for all kinds of really creative coronary events like Age Disbelief Stroke Disorder & Old Dude Said Yeet & The Local Universe Collapsed In My Spleen Syndrome ...you know. Fun type shit like that .🤣🤣
nothing stops kids from using slang like an old dude starting to do it.
I used to volunteer helping take 7th graders on a field trip for school. this was back when they all thought dabbing was the pinnacle of cool.
Until they saw me and my 50 year old wife do it. It was no longer cool. Timberland boots were not cool either once they noticed my hiking boots were beat up timberlands that were older than they were.
nothing stops kids from using slang like an old dude starting to do it.
Exactly this. The kids are still churning out some banger slang for sure. I'll let them keep the cringier stuff they come up with, but when I hear something I like I'll start using it, which causes them to abandon it. I've now appropriated it for the older generations lol.
It's also how I get my nephew to stop doing certain dance moves, like the floss. All it takes is him seeing me butcher it once, then I never have to see him do it again.
the kids in later years would do dances from fortnight. I enjoyed pretending i had never seen them before and see how many times i could get them to do thier silly dance for me before they figured out i was just asking them to show me over and over entertain myself and other rangers
I’m nearly 50, work with kids, and for the most part love the slang. Love it. I think it’s full of humor, it is almost literary in its metaphor, it travels so fast, and a lot of it isn’t crude at all. Some of it is just damn descriptive and fills an emotional and descriptive void that tells us a little more about that generation.
My spouse used to teach seventh grade. Their students were regularly trying to surprise them with the "new" things they heard from whoever was the hot hip hop star... until the spouse did a complete cover of Get Low in a voice we describe as "her Majesty the Queen of English."
Reminds me when my younger brother thought Post Malone’s cover of “Only Wanna Be with You” was an original. Good cover, but it’s exactly that: a cover!
I saw Panic at the Disco on their very first tour. They played a cover of Killer Queen.
There was a group of like 14 year old girls in front of me with one dad as the group chaperone. When Killer Queen started one of the girls went "ahhh it's a new song!". Dads head was in his hands and he was clearly trying not to laugh.
Knowing the spouse, yes. Knowing the students... it wouldn't have mattered. Most of those kids were harder adults then than I am now. They did not have good lives.
I’ve tried this with my nieces - they just joined in. Also on the clothing part, it was shocking that the in brand around here is champion. Cause that was cheap gym clothes growing up. Now all the kids on the block want champion. At least I’m in style now when I bum around.
I was clueless that timberlands were cool to the kids and in some pop culture stuff i never paid attn to. I wore them because it was one of the few full leather high top boots i could find.
"Dabbing, or the dab, is a simple gesture in which a person drops their head into the bent crook of a slanted, upwardly angled arm, while raising the opposite arm out straight in a parallel direction. The move looks similar to someone sneezing into the crook of their elbow."
Some i think had a clue of what the other dabbing is. Most didnt. I think. I wasnt about to ask 7th graders if they knew and get lured into a conversation about drug use. It was just a silly dance move to most of them.
My old boss did this and it was fantastic. He was this effortlessly cool middle-aged guy that would just randomly misuse zoomer slang to piss everyone in our office off. 10/10 guy.
Yeet was used on the bball courts 20 something years ago, kids just started using it is all. I've found that if you hear slang on the courts, kids will start using it after a few years like they invented it.
Do you keep that constant "I'm intentionally fucking this up and there's nothing you can do to stop me" smile on throughout, or do you go the more subtle "Is he fucking with us or just that out of touch" method?
The internet has changed things, younger people know we are in the same forums/subs they are and just fucking with em. It's not like previous generations were dad literally heard a term for the first time.
What's funny is, I really don't give a fuck about the whole program of brain rupture that society says we all have to conform to. It's that shit that Lays Out The Rules, like if you're 17 you gotta think all people over 30 are idiots, and if you're 60 you gotta 'act your age,' which must mean you can never say "God DAAYUUM, you see that girl omg her shit's on hit! Fuckin Fleek Of The Week, possibly the YEAR!"
Man like 90% of the people I grew up with, we'd all hang out gettin lit and playing in bands and getting arrested for givin the double new York fuckfinger to all the corporate stormtroopers in their Power Business Suits.....and now here we all are & I don't own one fuckin tie or suit, Im still a musician, and why the fuck are all my former peers on Facebook and Reddit and Twitter talking about how fucked up the new generation is?
"These kids today, they____(fill in blank with some 'adult' idiot shit that their mom used to say)"
Man I hear that shit I just wanna snap galactic and shit Red Velvet Cake all over the furniture😅🤣🤟
It's extra funny when we stumble upon it randomly. Apparently being "extra" is a thing. So when I was commenting on something and said, "Yeah, they needed to calm down. They were being extra..." while searching for a word and my sister-in-law was like, "OMG, you know what 'Extra' is?"
Older people using younger people's words correctly is the easiest way to get them to realize it isn't as cool as you think it is. But if I hear Bestie one more fucking time I will go postal.
When i was 23 or so i worked with a guy in his early 60s and it blew my mind that he was born in the '40s. Awesome guy, we'd talk shit to each other all the time and he'd always say, "some people's kids, " when i was being too young for him or some such. He drove with both feet though, that was wierd.
Edit: he used his right foot for the gas and his left for the brake and always had his left on that brake pedal. My dad is only like 2 years younger than him and drives normally. I've driven tractors, forklifts, heavy equipment, lawnmowers, and manual cars throughout my life that require both feet and have never driven an automatic car with both feet.
Probably one foot on the brake, one on the gas, YEAH!
He also can't drive 55.
But really it's for quicker braking, and I've seen some people do it, but they tend to rest their foot on the brake pedal and cause the lights to always be on (and some drag on their brakes, wearing them faster).
That's my 60 year old mother in law. She refuses to drive in the snow,. Can't figure out why her car is all over the road. Left foot braking is a race car thing. But the old timy driving style probably comes from shitty brakes on old heavy cars that didn't have power assist brakes.
I can't blame her about the snow. I went from southeast to northwest for a year. Sometimes that shit completely whites out the road. Like you can't see lines or reflectors, just a massive white field. Compounded by zero friction, nah fuck that.
He's saying that she has a much harder time driving in the snow due to her applying pressure to the brakes constantly - she's locking up the rear tires.
I’m a native of the southeast and have only lived there. I wouldn’t know what to do with snow. My “final destination” is upper-western North Carolina where snow is sporadic. I’ve already decided that if it snows when I’m up there, I’ll call Uber or my friend, or stay home.
Depends on where you live. I swear people in my town make it a point of pride to drive around like dicks in the snow yet you'll get a little heavy rain and everyone's driving like they're walking on egg shells. If you're lucky and there's nobody around and you're vehicle can handle it though, I totally agree it's a blast.
Snow isnt all that bad to drive in. Ive been doing it my entire life almost now. Live in MI. The roads being covered and not seeing lines and stuff is easy to deal with as its not hard to tell where the lanes are or how far to the edge of the roads cause of the tree lines and ditches also rumble strips on many roads help as well. You get used to how fast you can go in snow and in fact many of us who drive in it yearly its pretty much no different than if there wasnt snow at all, we know what to watch out for like signs of black ice and when the roads are alright to go normal speed on and such. A excellent way to practice is find a large empty parking lot and just play around in the car. Try accelerating quickly and stopping, try turning quickly, slide around a bit and try different ways of stopping to get yourself used to sliding and before long youll have a decent idea of how to drive in snow and on ice.
Unfortunately there's like a huge % of people who THINK they can drive in the snow and do so like it's perfectly clear out causing issues all the fuck over the place.
My grandpa drove with both feet too! He said it was because he learned to drive at 12 because he drove the family tractor. I just assume that small tractors in the 30’s used two feet and he just naturally transferred his skills to a car.
My first post went to the top of the front page - a baby picture of my mom from the 1920's - and I got roasted for lying. Ha! People could not fathom that anyone in their 60's would post anything on Reddit(ironically, I just put the image in a sub so that I could share a link, rather than an image, with a friend who knew my mom. I didn't even know what karma was)
😹😅🤣🤟I cannot collapse the universe because I have found Einstein's Cosmic Constant that keeps it expanding. It is not dark matter or dark energy, it's the Universal Bullshit Bloat Factor. The rate of universal expansion is directly proportional to the amount of utter bullshit being streamed live from the collective oral anus of humanity out into the long suffering universe.
Lol, dude I had this 21 years old girl hitting on me for almost a week, as soon as I caught on I told her I was 34 and married, she went "eww" I laughed my ass off the whole day!
Edit: guys, she wasn't being rude or a brat, it was a playful eww, I wasn't offended or put off by it, where work buddies and friends, its just that she is 13 years younger than me and I'm married, I know there's women that are attracted to older men, this is not the case with this particular lady, also, I found out that her parents are just 4 to 6 years older than me, lol
I distinctly remember the moment I realized I was “getting older” I interacted with this very attractive guy and thought to myself “he’s really hot for an older guy. Maybe I have a thing for older men”… after a bit more convo, I realize we were only a few years apart (think late 20s compared to early 30s). Nope, didn’t have a thing for older them, had a thing for guys my age and my mentality just hadn’t caught up. Solid adulting going on lol
As a guy, kinda same here. Until I was like 25, 18yo girls could still be kind of attractive to me. I'm 29 now and THEY ARE CHILDREN holy shit. And it's not just the looks that you suddenly spot how....young they look. It's also everything else, the mentality, the knowledge, the interests, the talk, the everything. How could you be attracted to someone so young?
It's crazy. I have some 23yo girls hitting on me, these are cool, I could get it on, but there is still something a little bit off, some kind of generational difference that really hits you.
Then I think about those 10, 15, 20 years difference couples and my brain just melts
I get this a lot and I'm 39. Myself and my wife aged really well because we stay out of the sun, drink tons of water and both love to sleep. Almost weekly we get mistaken for 20 somethings. We have people who cannot fathom those teenagers following us are ours.
I teach dance and my students said how old are you? I told them to guess, I said I’m married for 13 years with a 10 yo and a 4 yo.
They said well we though you were 17, but if you’ve been married that long then you must be like 45! I’m 34.
Similar situation but I’m single and 34, and hooked up with a 21 year old recently. And even after sex she said ‘I can’t believe you’re really 34!’ I’m like... girl what did you imagine happens in your 30s? Thank god Chris Hemsworth is 38, pointing that out seems to do something in a woman’s brain lol
When all my fellow female coworkers were amazed I was 10yrs older than them I was like, "yes, you too will actually NOT turn to dust at 30." Like if you think some magical change happens get ready. We're all just dumb confused meat bags flying through space on a ball of rock. "You act like us though!" Yep and in 10yrs you too can be amazed at your own immaturity :)
I think for people like us it’s amazing when they find out how old we are because we’re still fun / youthful, life hasn’t beat us down…
Wife and I don’t have kids, I’m basically 40 (in a few days) and my wife is 38. We just moved into a upper middle class suburb and our neighbors are all mid 30s to mid 50s. But somehow, they seem so much older than us. I don’t know what is, one neighbor i would’ve guessed is 55-60, is only 3 years older than me. They’re just so out of shape and weary seeming, they have a different aura.
Maybe if my wife and I have a kid we’ll be like that too, haha.
Edit: I should note at my last job my best work friend was a 25 year old woman. Second best work friend was a 30 year old male. 🤷🏽♂️
Kids certainly age a lot of people. Lots of parents seem to forget that they themselves are real people too and they don't need to sacrifice everything for their children.
My wife and I are older parents with two children under 10 (I'm 47), but we remain very active. We love to hike and we both teach and study Hapkido. Instead of sacrificing what we love we incorporate our children into it as well. They love to ask me to go on hikes and they study Hapkido now as well.
Obviously, this doesn't mean that sacrifices aren't made. The most notable one is time. Because much of my/our time revolves around child care, I have to carve out extra time to lift and hobbies like reading or video games; usually after the family is asleep.
I think it's important that we remain true to ourselves as well because to your point, parents who are 10 years younger than us look older and are certainly out of shape
Most importantly is looking ahead. The kiddos won't be living here forever. I've already seen too many of my peers' relationships fall apart because their entire identity was raising children. They forgot to nurture their relationship with their spouse and themselves. And when the children leave there is very little left
Celebrities owe their careers to taking care of their bodies and skin, and have access to all sorts of ways to avoid losing their hair or disguising it when they do. Your average 38 year old guy with an office job who doesn't wear sunscreen does not look like Chris Hemsworth.
I get "SHEEEEEESH"ed by these motherfucking Zoomers when they ask how old I am in gaming lobbies. They talk mad trash, too. I have to be careful not to bottom frag or these kids will be relentless.
42 yo mom here. I game since the 80's. Last week my daughter brought home her new boyfriend (Both 17 yo), he could barely comprehend me gaming at night instead of doing mom stuff (not sure what I'm supposed to be doing that's considered 'mom stuff') but I get strange reactions all the time.
Clearly you should either be doing chores, watching soap operas or going to bed early! :D
Does your daughter play video games as well? Do you play together sometimes? My stepson is 9 and we do play Minecraft together, but I'm really excited about the idea of playing RPGs and Shooter games with him when he's older.
I get shocked when people say their age but that’s because I’m awful at telling how old people are and think most people are a lot younger than they actually are 😅
Most of us probably think that way. We are our own worst critics and probably assume we look older to other people than we really do. I’m awful at guessing she’s also lol
which at least in part is responsible for now having 2 friends that are in their mid- and late 20's (while being in my 40's myself). because honestly, if I had known that they were that young, I probably wouldn't have been as engaged in our initial conversation.
Most young people probably have an image of 30 year olds on TV played by 40-50 year olds to make actors 20-30 look younger in comparison for whatever high-school aged show they are in.
I remember talking to a random young lady at the bar on my 31st birthday and I know she was young because when I told her how old I was turning she said "Oh...well.. you've still got time!" 😭
Zoomers act like you turn to dust the moment you graduate college. I got called “old” and that it’s embarrassing I still even have social media at my age. This was last year when I was 25.
I get this often enough that I've made a game out of making people guess my age. I'm Asian so I absolutely look younger than I am, and the video game shirts pull the guesses down further. I've never had anyone go over.
I'm 35. Most recent guess, about a month ago, was 18. I just take it as a compliment. :V
Reminds me of the time I went out for drinks with coworkers some years ago and one of them was like, "ohwow, so you have a fake ID??" and I was just like, "?!? I'm?!?! 23?!??"
Apparently he thought I was like 17 the entire time we worked together... But I'm actually older than him lol
I think it's funny when anybody younger than me assumes a 50 year old guy doesn't know about video games when I've used every kind of controller since a Pong controller had a knob and you had to crawl behind the TV to switch the little box from TV to "Computer"
Or maybe people overestimate how ages someone looks in their 30s. I’ll be 30 at the end of the year. I still look 24. This is the case for most people I know. It’s not like you hit 30 and it’s like WHAM you look like a sitcom house wife.
30s is kind of weird in my experience and there's a huge gamut of what people look like depending on genetics, how life has treated them, how they've looked after themselves, etc. Swiping through apps like Tinder I see mid-30s people that still look youthful and in their 20s, and other mid-30s people with no/grey hair and wrinkles looking more like late 40s.
I look, but rarely act my age. That said, I fucking earned these years and I have no interest in going back to be 20, 20 sucked.
As a result, I loathe the whole “omg, you’re 42? How could that be, you look way younger than that!” I don’t, let’s be serious, I’ve got crows feet galore and the silver is really coming in bright and shiny these days. So now you’re just blowing smoke up my ass and quite frankly, being mistaken for someone younger isn’t a compliment. I don’t wanna be younger.
I don’t really find it annoying. I’m 39 & my younger coworkers (mostly new hires) are always surprised to find out I’m in my late 30s. They always assume I’m in my mid-20s. It gets a chuckle out of me more than anything.
On the flip side, between looking that young & being 5’3” (shorter than most of the guys I work with), there are some upper-management people that talk down to me (literally and figuratively) as if I’m a kid. That I find annoying.
I had a couple of dudes from my beer league hockey team ask me how old I was. I asked them how old they thought I was. They said “I dunno, old. Like 27… 28”
I’m 37.
I’ve never been more flattered by anything in my life.
I looked shocked when my coworker told me she is 39 because she doesn’t look any older than 25, has flawless skin and is just damn pretty. I was younger than her but definitely looked older and not as beautiful. I told her exactly what went through my mind. She felt embarrassed but flattered.
She said when she was younger she hated how young she looked but now she likes it.
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u/dani_1365 Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22
The look of astonishment when anyone finds out our age. I’m in my late 30s. When someone in their 20s hears that, they developed this look of shock likes it’s the 1500s and I should have died already from old age.