I’ve never been the kind of person who cares about his age. Turning 30 didn’t frighten or upset me in any way, and I don’t expect future milestones to either. I know there are tons of people out there who repeatedly celebrate their 29th or 39th birthdays, but that’s always seemed silly and rather illogical to me. All that being said, I had two age-related conversations at work recently that actually pained me a bit.
First off, I sit next to a very nice young lady. She’s an intern, so I already understood that she was young but hadn’t given it too much thought. I had a couple of questions for her, but we had a meeting starting a minute from then, so I said, “We can walk and talk, just like on ‘The West Wing.'” “Excuse me?” she asked. “Oh, on ‘The West Wing’ they always had conversations while walking the halls of the White House.” It turns out that she never watched the show because when it first came on the air, she was…in elementary school. I had already graduated college when the pilot aired. It would be one thing if I were talking to some younger cousin or something, but I view her as a colleague and near-peer, so it didn’t occur to me that we were in entirely different generations. That became even clearer when I saw her mug that said “Class of 2007.” Oh yeah – and that was from her high school.
Secondly, the topic of age came up last week again when I was chatting with three or four people. “How old are you?” one asked. Before I could answer, one younger lady thought it would be wise to offer a guess: “38?” Like I said at the beginning of this post, I truly don’t mind my age number getting higher…but that one got me. “38!” I exclaimed. Someone else asked, “You’re 34, right?” “Yes, just 34,” I said. I know there’s not a huge difference there, and I’ll be 35 in just a few months, but that’s the first time in my entire life that someone has guessed my age to be multiple years older than it actually is. I always got younger guesses (and have even posted about being carded at Trader Joe’s – do they card people who look 38?), so that one stung a little. Is it the beard? I don’t think so, because I’ve had it a few years now. Is it that I’ve been carrying myself more professionally than normal? Nah, probably not. Do I need to start using that eye cream? Maybe. I’m telling myself that she’s just bad at guessing ages in general, as some people are. To be fair, I don’t know if she’s 23 or 28, and neither would shock me. But I never would just offer the high end of the range, even if asked directly. But maybe it’s exactly that kind of wisdom that comes with my advanced age.
(I wrote the majority of this post two weeks ago and am just getting around to finishing/posting it now. During that time, someone guessed that the 22 year-old intern was 24. She made a slightly horrified face. “Not fun, is it?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “not fun.”)