The Puzzling Gap Between How Old You Are and How Old You Think You Are

One of the most-read articles in The Atlantic in 2023.

Why do so many people have an immediate, intuitive grasp of this highly abstract concept—“subjective age,” it’s called—when randomly presented with it? It’s bizarre, if you think about it. Certainly most of us don’t believe ourselves to be shorter or taller than we actually are. We don’t think of ourselves as having smaller ears or longer noses or curlier hair. Most of us also know where our bodies are in space, what physiologists call “proprioception.” Yet we seem to have an awfully rough go of locating ourselves in time.

by Anonymousreply 20December 15, 2023 8:32 PM

And here's the link to the story...

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 1December 14, 2023 6:53 PM

On DL the gap is between how old you are and how old you think you look.

by Anonymousreply 3December 14, 2023 9:05 PM

I was basically an old gay man when I was 10. It's only recently I've caught up.

by Anonymousreply 4December 14, 2023 9:07 PM

I'm very aware of how old I am physically, but mentally I still feel much younger.

by Anonymousreply 5December 14, 2023 9:09 PM

Due to change in lifestyle over the last 3 years, at age 63 I feel probably at least 10-20% younger. Mentally I don't feel I'm in my 60s, more like I'm in my 40s. Sometimes I have to make a point of reminding myself of my age.

by Anonymousreply 6December 14, 2023 9:21 PM

The paper ignores the difference between chronological age and physical age. There are plenty of tests you can take that measure the latter. I'm 65. I know 65 year olds who seem 75 and some who seem 45 -- and the latter often have taken tests that confirm that their body is that of someone much younger. We don't all age at the same rate. So some of those people who think they're 10% younger than their age are actually correct.

by Anonymousreply 7December 14, 2023 9:31 PM

Just eating healthy and staying active will keep you looking and feeling younger than people of equivalent age who are just couch potatoes.

by Anonymousreply 8December 14, 2023 9:35 PM

I'm fortunate to have good health so I don't "feel my age" in the sense of aches and pains and limitations. I'm 62. I know my age; I'm not coy about it, nor do I hesitate a second to say it if someone asks or if it's important to a conversation. I understand how my outlook has changed across the years. I know my abilities and my limitations. I have some reasonably good sense of how others view me; I assume most people would not be far off were they to have a good, hard luck and then guess my age. I know that the field of people who find me attractive has thinned.

I don't feel old no more than I felt young when I was 17. Like R4, I was born rather mature and lived impatiently in the future for many years. Now I live in the present and near future, with little time for moaning about faded looks or gravity or how apart I feel from younger generations. Over the years I've grown happier than I was as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, and in all my previous decades, and am content with what I have and don't have. For much of my life I had many older friends who were very engaged in all sorts of things and with the present, not caught in recollections and the perspective that everything good was in the past. They unknowingly served as models for how to be old and still an active participant in things. Despite some physical and age-related limitations, despite the loss of their youthful looks, they got on with things and retained a deep curiosity beyond themselves, beyond their living rooms. It also taught me the value of having a wide range of friends and acquaintances, from different places, backgrounds, and ages.

by Anonymousreply 9December 14, 2023 9:36 PM

I'm thirty-six. Sometimes I feel as though I'm still a little kid. Sometimes I feel as though I'm about eighty-five.

by Anonymousreply 10December 14, 2023 9:38 PM

I think one of the most common feelings of all people as they age, male, female and all sexual types is the rapid passage of time that can make you feel perpetually younger than you are. Has nothing to do with vanity or delusion.

by Anonymousreply 12December 14, 2023 9:50 PM

That’s certainly true for me Charlie. Years go by like months now.

by Anonymousreply 13December 15, 2023 12:48 PM

OP- There are certainly a lot of delusional queens on the data lounge who think that they look 25 when there are 75!

by Anonymousreply 15December 15, 2023 12:54 PM

I prefer to date someone my age, mid-50s. But the problem is that they all LOOK mid-50s. I can pass for late 40s.

by Anonymousreply 16December 15, 2023 12:58 PM

[quote]I don't feel old no more than I felt young when I was 17.

My grandma told me when she was 85 that she still felt like an 18 year old inside. It's just that her outside didn't agree.

by Anonymousreply 17December 15, 2023 1:02 PM

Here's Armando Iannucci on the rollercoaster of ageing (starts around 19:10):

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by Anonymousreply 19December 15, 2023 7:25 PM

I'm 70, and most days physically I feel like I'm 85. But mentally I'm still in my late 20s

by Anonymousreply 20December 15, 2023 8:32 PM

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