When did you first feel old?

Reddit asks the question.  Here are a few answers:

  • My very first realization was in my mid 20’s. Four teenage boys pulled up next to my car one night at a gas station. They wanted me to buy them beer and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want the responsibility or guilt if something happened to them or someone else.
  • When an ex-boyfriend’s small children found one of my cassette tapes and asked what it was.
  • A girl, probably late teen / early 20s, after over hearing a story I was telling asked, “You used to be able to smoke in a mall?” The conversation shifted to the old beer cans and we were trying to describe to her the old pull tabs to open them. She had no clue what we were talking about.
  • A girl was showing off her new jeans. They came pre-ripped as the trend was starting to take off again for a short time. She told me she paid $90 for them. In my head my first thought was, “You paid $90 for a pair of jeans already ripped? I could have done that for free myself.” It was as if my dad was inside my head as that’s exactly what he would have said to me. I could hear his voice and everything. While I obviously now agreed with it, it still made me cringe to realize I was starting to think like my parents.

When did you first feel old?

33 thoughts on “When did you first feel old?”

  1. This happened while I was volunteering at a zoo: I was probably in my mid-20’s and had some teenagers ask me what a penguin sounds like. I confirmed that what they heard from a keeper was correct–that penguins bray similar to a donkey. As an example, I said they sounded like Burgess Merideth’s Penguin character from the “Batman and Robin” show.

    The kids knew nothing about that show–nor had they heard of it. And yes, this was before all the remakes of the Batman movies.

  2. For me it was the day I realized that all the doctors, police, mail carriers, school teachers, etc. were younger than I was.

  3. When I asked the young girl behind the counter if she needed to see ID for the case of beer I was buying….and the bitch laughed.

  4. When I asked the young girl behind the counter if she needed to see my ID for the case of beer I was buying….and the little bitch laughed.

  5. I was reading a Playboy Magazine issue that had an article about the joys of playing with “older womer”.

    In the instant issue, all of the examples of “older women” had been born after I graduated from High School.

    And that was a long time ago.

  6. I started to feel old when almost all my high school friends started to have children. Pfft, who needs children to slow a guy down.

  7. When i realise i was old when i was talking about some music groups getting back together and my work colleagues didnt remember them the first time around

  8. I didn’t mind being older that most of the people I work with because I have almost always worked with someone younger. But this year I finally hit the point where I’m older than their parents!

  9. I got pulled over by two cops in a cruiser. When I pulled my full face helmet off they both looked shocked at my age (early thirties). I was shocked at the age of the cops, I almost said “What do you kids want?”

  10. When a girl I use to babysit for added me as a facebook friend (this was still when you had to be in college/have a college email to get an account). That wasn’t too bad, until she asked me if I had any old Drivers Licenses that she could have to use as a fake ID.

  11. One day a very sexy girl in my job ask me if she could borrow my Ipod. When she saw a huge folder titled 90’s, the music I grew up with, she told me “So you like oldies!”…. bit#$%&*

  12. wow, i never knowed, theres an age that you get old, im 20, and i allways felt old, its just that im the youngest at my job 🙂

  13. In graduate school, I was in line to use a photocopier. A younger student asked the kid in front of me “Hey, man, can you break a ten?” The student then turned to me and said “Excuse me, sir…”

  14. I was in a pub with my boyfriend of the time and the bartender said to him ‘My goodness! What a lovely young face you have! Can I see your ID?’ She then looked at me and said ‘I wont need to see yours, Love’. I was 20.

  15. I had just bought my house, and the gutters were clogged with leaves. No ladder, so I was up on the roof cleaning them out from above. I looked down after a bit, then up to the street. And realized that if I fell the 2 stories, I would have to crawl through the woods 100 yards with broken bones to get help – and decided that the leaves were fine where they were. . .

  16. I was telling my kids which books were my favorites when I was their age. My youngest said, “Books weren’t even invented back then!”

    This post reminded me of my ex-husband. We were in line at a movie theater and he whispered to me that two girls were looking at him and giggling. He figured they recognized him, as he was the morning deejay at the biggest radio station in town. I could see his ego inflating. I excused myself to get popcorn while he stood in the ticket line. Later he joined me with a downcast look. The girls approached him, and asked him if he would pose as their father so they could get into an R rated movie! HA! I could not stop laughing.

    Jeez, that was over 20 years ago. NOW I feel old!

  17. When my friends son (who was in high school at the time) had no idea that unpopped popcorn kernels were called ‘Old Maids’.

    Also, just yesterday my hubby made the comment that the AC-DC song on the radio had been around for thirty years. . . THIRTY YEARS!!!!

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