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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3484 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 13, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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How do you notice yourself growing older? I have a mildly amusing anecdote to tell.

For the longest time I used to trigger the mommy mode in older women. The last three years have been spent working remotely, so I had much fewer reference points, but around the new year I had to deal with a few female strangers in their late forties (I'm in my late thirties myself) and the interactions felt a little off, but I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong.

And then it hit me: they were low-key flirting with me. Not in the sense of "how about instead of fixing the zipper on your parka I'll take you to the changing room", but the overall tone of the conversation swiitched from "oh, what a bright boy" to "oh, what a handsome man".

I don't know what triggered this: the beard, the broader silhouette I've gained in the gym, just the years piling up or everything together, but I am not sure how to handle this. I'd rather girls half their age (or half my age) tried to hit on the sexy daddy to match my wife's experience. Or perhaps they already do and I'm just too oblivious and only the women who are old and wise enough to lay it on thick get through?

Older men, especially in service jobs, are more competitive and irritated by my presence these days. In my 20s and younger most older men would dismiss me as a kid but I've noticed that they are trying to jockey for control with me much more the older that I get. If I act anxious or like I expect them to give me bad service (which happens all the time) they can sense this and act hostile toward me, while when I was younger they would be more comfortable with their seniority and just do their job without their ego getting in the way. I have to sort of consciously act respectful and passive toward cab drivers and servers and so on these days just to get an acceptable level of service.

I get more positive attention from fellow gay men though. I think gay men are attracted to masculinity and maturity and getting older has given me more confidence which all make me more attractive to others. A few years ago I was worried that I was getting too old for men to be attracted to me but once I started embracing my 30s and playing up my adult traits I actually became more attractive to people.

It's mostly the grey hair .

Honestly can't say I've noticed older women flirting with me, but then apart from grey hair I still look boyish in that I'm slender. Before I got really grey people were guessing my age wildly incorrectly, mid 20s instead of mid 30s.

What did they say exactly? I've had older women say stuff like this but I don't know think they were hitting on me because they've always been more than twice my age.

As I've said, I'm relatively socially oblivious, so I didn't remember anything specific, but I realized post factum the overall tone had been different from what I had gotten used to hearing.

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." -- Mark Twain

It took me until 31, but he's right.

I also find I'm more and more set in my tastes and abilities. When I was younger, I wanted to do and often did what you were "supposed" to do, now if I don't like the normal way to do something I just refuse to do it. I don't do straight bar deadlifts because every time I do it I end up hurting my back. When I drink, I first prepare a 40oz liquid IV for when I return. I'm never going to really like IPAs.

What do you put in your liquid IV?

I wish Twain's comment was the case for all of us. As I've grown older, and I'm 35 now, I respect my parents much less. It was only after going out and getting more experience in the world that I was able to understand how selfish they were. That was a tough pill to swallow.

How do you mean selfish? Or actually, could you just expand on all of this if it's not too personal? I went the same route as FiveHourMarathon, so your experience is very alien to me.

My father was a police officer in a very dangerous city, and he wanted a "take home" car that he could park outside our house, to show people he was a police officer and so that he wouldn't have to drive to the station each morning to pick up a car. The police department that he worked at required police to live within the city limits to have this privilege, and so we bought a house in this city, and I went to school there. This meant that the public middle and high schools I went to were simply atrocious. Gangs, metal detectors, weekly fights, shootings, underage pregnancies, drugs, etc. Before moving into this area, I was a relatively sheltered child who had lived on military bases, so as you can imagine this was quite a shock for me.

My mother didn't work (and still doesn't), and really wanted to live the American dream of having a house with a picket fence and play housewife even if that house was only affordable to them due to the bad schools around it. Instead of getting into a lot of trouble as a kid, I simply shelled up and was very depressed and scared. Regardless of anything I was going through - we couldn't move since my parents loved having a house and I couldn't go to a different school because we didn't have enough money for a private school.

And I developed deep life long depression and still sometimes panic in large crowds due to the fights and riots I experienced while in school. After high school I often wondered why I was so emotionally immature and I think some of it had to do with growing up in this sort of environment. Regardless, I have taken responsibility for my life now and have my own family and children. As I look back upon this situation, I can't help but respect my own parents less and less as I age. It pains me to be around them, as they seemingly were very happy to sacrifice my happiness and childhood for their way of life.

You, a cop's kid, had to pay protection to bullies in school ?

US is kind of weird. I don't think this would've happend to a cop's kid in eastern Europe. Not that I've ever heard of anyone paying protection at school. People do get bullied. I went to a non-selective state middle school and got into a lot of fights over insults before I learnd to tune them out.

Was bullied a bit at the end of it but fortunately it was only one semester and it wasn't that bad. Maybe because I had a reputation for psychotic fighting if provoked, the guys who bullied me were cca 15 and 200 lbs each, I weighed maybe 140 at the time.

I think you're muddling "shelled up" with shelled out.

Yeah.. that's a phrase I haven't seen used yet, and "shelled out" looked like it'd fit there, so..

(also shift work makes me lose sleep, so..)

I probably didn't articulate it well enough. I didn't have to pay anything, and I didn't get bullied. The reason I didn't get bullied was that I basically shelled up and treated school like jail.

Every non-selective school is jail to people who aren't complete normies or social geniuses.

You just got a particularly harsh type of jail. I had the somewhat comfy German one where it's kinda shabby but overall not that bad.

You got the American one with race gangs and all that shit.

Your dad is slow, I guess.

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." -- Mark Twain

It took me until 31, but he's right.

And then you have kids and find out your parents were parents and you were a child all along. My husband and I have gained a newfound awe towards our mothers now that we have a baby. Kinda-sorta towards the fathers. It’s like a circle. As a baby, your parents are everything, especially moms. They can make themselves disappear and reappear with a wave of their hands! Fricking magic right there. Then you grow to look at them as idiots who keep getting in the way of your genius, and then you have children and realize your mom’s a saint all along. Dad’s always been a cad, but a lovable one who’s better than your thought.

On the deadlift-backpain note, having a child in our early 30’s made us realize we should have started in our 20’s. Little poopface was kicking our butts physically before he hit 10 pounds. Both our backs are sore despite efforts towards proper posture and bending, one of my wrists is always tender from carrying the baby, my husband’s feet hurt from walking the baby around. I still think early 30’s is on the young side of adult, but it turns out to also be close to middle age.

My parents' favourite line when I was a kid was "I can't wait until you have kids of your own".

The rides at the fair weren't fun anymore.

I'm hardly old (25), but I feel as much for some reason.

At some point in the near past 18-22-year-olds stopped being categorized as young adults in my head and changed into kids subconsciously.

I visited my Alma Matter recently for some paperwork and thought "why do I feel like I'm surrounded by kids, no way these people are in college!".

Huh. That only happened to me re: women.

Susceptibility to hangovers. I’m an oenophile and have always been a moderate drinker. The supermajority of days I have a single glass of wine with dinner. But on social occasions in my 20s, three or four glasses over a long evening never caused me any discomfort the next morning. I usually cap myself at two or maybe three, now, because even three is becoming a gamble with worsening odds.

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