Many people have topics that they don’t like to talk about. Or to reveal things about themselves that cost them enough to overcome. Our author reveals what these are here.
If I could choose two questions that no one would ever ask me again, I would choose “What do you have planned this weekend?” and how old are you?” decide.
The first question usually irritates me because I don’t have anything planned most weekends and therefore consider one of my basic life goals to have been achieved. However, when someone asks me about my weekend plans, I wonder whether I should have some and whether there is something wrong with my concept of life. Normally this irritation only lasts for a short time and disappears as soon as I throw myself into my unplanned weekend with real skill. But I wouldn’t mind doing without this irritation and question until the end of my time.
I don’t even know how old I am
My second horror question poses a bigger mystery to me: “How old are you?” The last time a young man, in his early twenties, asked me about it was in a bar at around 1 a.m. My cousin and I were sitting in the corner of the sofa and started talking to the man after his friend next to him on the sofa had a spontaneous conversation had fallen into deep sleep. So he asked us how old we were, whereupon I changed position in silence while my cousin replied: “We’re both getting to the age where we don’t like talking about numbers anymore.” His answer reassured me once again of the feeling I have for him: deep kinship. But I have to honestly admit that I have no idea why telling my age to a young man in a bar is a problem for me. Or anyone else in any other context.
Good: The practical problem is that I usually don’t even know how old I am. I always have to calculate it based on my year of birth, bearing in mind that I was born at the end of the year, which complicates the calculation. However, I like arithmetic, at school I was a arithmetic champ and in high school I even had math skills (and still managed to graduate). My problem clearly lies in the result, in this case the difference: my age. I feel a reluctance to say, know, or otherwise deal with my age. In principle, I don’t think it’s bad or problematic that I’m getting older. I even prefer my current, older self to my younger self.
Aging is considered uncool – but I actually think it’s quite nice
For example, I like that today I can sit comfortably on the couch and read and don’t have to be constantly moving because otherwise I would feel restless. I like that I’m no longer afraid that something that I can’t handle will happen to me. I like that I use less exclamation points, that I know and understand my priorities and needs better, and that I don’t constantly feel like I’m wrong and lost. Aside from my slight frown line, I actually like my wrinkles, especially the ones towards my temples. When I notice them, I think of all the sunny days in my life. Since I’ve passed 30 or so, I just don’t like the numerical label that comes with it all.
Maybe it’s because I’m influenced by the social environment in which I live. My mother has been coloring her hair every month for 30 or 40 years. My older sisters have fewer wrinkles than I do – at least in part because they paid for them. In public, it is considered impolite to ask women their age. And in relevant holiday resorts, the promoters of the nightclubs on the beach only invite women up to the age of 25 to their parties. Things like that suggest to me that getting older isn’t cool, especially for me as a woman. That I am ashamed of it and even have to hide it if possible.
The catch here, however, is that I’m genuinely happy if the promo people let me read it in peace on the beach. I don’t think asking someone’s age is rude, just uninteresting in most contexts. And I’d rather save my money to spend more days in sunny climes and get a few extra wrinkles than spend it on hair dye or Botox. I am certainly shaped and influenced by my social environment in many ways. However, I’m not sure about this. My feeling tells me that I have other, more important reasons for not wanting to know my age. But I can’t figure out what those could be.
What am I afraid of?
I certainly don’t feel any fear or the feeling that I’m running out of time and opportunities. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already experienced enough. I’m happy to stay there, but when the party is over I’m ready to leave at any time. To be honest, I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation anyway if I had been asked – as much as I liked the music, the guests and the location.
On the other hand, I definitely feel worried that the party will last longer than I would like. That I have more time than I can handle. And that at some point I’ll reach an age for which I should have prepared, but didn’t. While I am content and busy living and loving my life today, tomorrow and the next few months, other people are planning for their retirement and planning their free retirement time. This stresses me out a thousand times more than my looming frown lines. But is that my problem with the age question? Maybe to a certain extent.
What does what age mean?
When a person asks me my age, I feel a bit like the person is asking what time it is. As if my life were a day and my age was an hour ticking away at me. By 8 a.m. I should know what I want to do by 4 p.m., and by 1 p.m. at the latest the vegetables for dinner have to be in the broth so that they can soak and taste good. Otherwise there is bland stew. For me there’s just nothing wrong with this picture. At 10 a.m. I didn’t know what I wanted to do until lunchtime, and whether I would even feel like eating in the evening, having to think about it beforehand ruined my appetite. For me that’s okay, or right, because it works. For me, my life is not a period of time that can be divided into sections that, when pressed into a number, could have any meaning. I don’t want to measure or think about my life in years. At least that’s not what I want today, at this age that I am right now. And I am so certain of this wish or need that – for myself – I don’t need an explanation approved by my frontal lobe.
In order to partially answer the question asked at the beginning about my problem with the age question: At the moment I don’t know what my age is supposed to tell me and what it means, and dealing with it primarily makes me feel stressed. That’s why I think I don’t like being asked about it. Maybe things will look different again at 5 p.m. Maybe then I’ll be a little further along. Maybe it’s no coincidence that I also don’t like being asked about my weekend plans. And maybe it’s all much simpler and I’m mainly influenced by the social environment in which I live. At this point I only know one thing for sure: I don’t want to and won’t start subtracting on command for anyone.