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I can point to another possibility, regarding conversations I've had with my husband.
When we first got together, he admitted to me that he'd lied about his age on a profile on a site where we met (it wasn't a dating site exactly, kind of social media ish)... And he also had no clear photos of himself there, either, nor his real name (aliases are commonly used there.) He had not misrepresented his age by a lot, just a few years, but the point wasn't to materially deceive a possible partner such as myself. The point was that he was wary of dropping a collection of accurate vital stats about himself at any one place on the internet where anyone could just find them.
He is not on Facebook, or anything similar. (the site I mentioned was more of a fringe interest thing.) He is wary of identity theft and he simply feels like the exact information is none of anybody's business unless he specifically needs to share it.
And I am somewhat good at checking for at least the easy to find internet presence of a person with a few basic facts to go on, and when I did some searching on him, I found he'd been pretty successful in his desire to preserve as much privacy as possible for himself. His internet footprint is very, very small.
Really, if one doesn't need to know another person's exact age, then it can be none of our business. There isn't anything wrong with that. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are overly sensitive about aging.
I've always wondered why the newspaper articles always state the person's age even when it isn't relevant to the story. People make judgments. I've seen incredibly idiotic stories that refer to a person as "elderly" and then in a subsequent paragraph say that the person is 61. 61 isn't elderly, but the use of that word just conjured up to the reader a frail, slow-moving human being when that might not be true at all.
So, often a precise age is obtained to slant an article to put a picture in a person's mind that might not really be accurate. Perhaps the "fifty-something" person did not want to be so pegged.
I remember one newspaper article that had in it's headline, and kept referring to the woman as "a great- grandmother". Yes, I was picturing a frail, very elderly person. Near the end of the article it mentioned her age and it was something like 56!
I remember one newspaper article that had in it's headline, and kept referring to the woman as "a great- grandmother". Yes, I was picturing a frail, very elderly person. Near the end of the article it mentioned her age and it was something like 56!
My husband was 19 when his son was born. We're in our our early 60's, and we've been great grandparents for 5 years.
I never heard anyone say that. I am 50 something and never said that until I just typed it now. Must have been women interviewees who did not want to state their age. I don't think there is a thing here.
I have never said that either. And the show Thirty Something, would’ve been pretty silly if it was called “33” especially since all the stars were not the same age, and then every year they would’ve had to change the name of the titles of the show.
I can point to another possibility, regarding conversations I've had with my husband.
When we first got together, he admitted to me that he'd lied about his age on a profile on a site where we met (it wasn't a dating site exactly, kind of social media ish)... And he also had no clear photos of himself there, either, nor his real name (aliases are commonly used there.) He had not misrepresented his age by a lot, just a few years, but the point wasn't to materially deceive a possible partner such as myself. The point was that he was wary of dropping a collection of accurate vital stats about himself at any one place on the internet where anyone could just find them.
He is not on Facebook, or anything similar. (the site I mentioned was more of a fringe interest thing.) He is wary of identity theft and he simply feels like the exact information is none of anybody's business unless he specifically needs to share it.
And I am somewhat good at checking for at least the easy to find internet presence of a person with a few basic facts to go on, and when I did some searching on him, I found he'd been pretty successful in his desire to preserve as much privacy as possible for himself. His internet footprint is very, very small.
Really, if one doesn't need to know another person's exact age, then it can be none of our business. There isn't anything wrong with that. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are overly sensitive about aging.
My ex lied about his age by 4 years when we met. I didn’t know his real age till we were living together. He wasn’t old either, I was 26 and he was 32.
My ex lied about his age by 4 years when we met. I didn’t know his real age till we were living together. He wasn’t old either, I was 26 and he was 32.
My husband didn't wait that long to tell me.
We'd been interacting socially, deliberately gravitating to one another and "seeing" one another but at events with lots of our friends around, not really one on one, for two months. When I finally visited his home for the first time, and we began both our sexual relationship and also going for regular one on one dates, that first visit to his house before anything at all happened, he said he had three things he wanted me to know.
1. His real age, and that he'd lied about it online and why. (I didn't really care, it isn't a huge difference, 4 years, when someone is in their 50s as he was then.)
2. Some health issues he's got...he manages them well, and they don't impair him, but he wanted me to be aware. He's not a 20 year old and his body is beginning to remind him of it.
3. The situation with his elderly father, that if he ever had an emergency or health crisis, he'd need to pretty much drop everything and rush to AZ to take care of him, and I needed to understand and accept that.
So I was well informed before we slept together, and began really building a relationship with each other. It was another 2 years before we moved in together, and we got married after almost 3 years of cohabitation.
My point is that his lie about his age did not seem manipulative. It seemed more like "I don't mind giving people a ballpark on that, but the exact number is none of your business if you're a stranger. I'll tell you if you need to know." I think that's completely fair.
There was an interview in the newspaper where the interviewee stated they were "fifty something" instead of saying they were 52 or 57. I've seen this quite a lot and have been wondering why. Years ago there was a TV show called Thirty Something, but that's because the group of characters, while all in their thirties, weren't all exactly the same age. But why would someone not give their exact age? I know women can be reluctant to state their age and even shave some years off, but if you are willing to admit the decade, is there really that much difference/stigma between 53 and 58, for example? Just wondering what the psychology might be...
People don't like getting old. When they were young, a date with mortality just seemed far, far away!
Are you talking about just THIS decade (50's) or are you saying any decade?
I've referred to myself as 50 something, when trying to remember when I had a hysterectomy, because I don't remember exactly when I had it. Or, I was 50 something when my dad died.
But to try to gloss over my age...I've never done that.
Any decade. I just happened to read about someone who was 50 something, but I've seen it even with younger people, as well as older. I do understand your examples when you couldn't remember what age you had been when something specific happened to you. I'm wondering more about someone who is willing to give a decade, but not a specific age. Guess it's just hope that people will think they are 50 or 51 instead of 59---sad that people would want to hide their age.
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