What age constitutes "old"?

[rory_20_uk]

Chronological age is at best an approximiation of age. Physiological age is far more useful, but practically extremely difficult to quantify.

I've seen 65 year olds in a far worse state than one 93 year old (former alcoholic for 30 years, other one still a part time postman).

[KukriKhan]

It ain't the age - it's the mileage. :)

I'm still 17 in my head...

LOL, yeah. 25 here. The grey-haired dude startles me every morning when I see him in the mirror.

[yesdachi]

If the music is too loud then you are too old.

I think it really depends on your physical condition. If you are out of shape and sickly at thirty you could be old when others aren’t old until they are 60. in my mind I always thought 30 WAS old until I got there and now I think 50 is old. I guess it is relative.

[Lemur]

I hit the big four-oh this year, and came face-to-face with the realization that there are probably fewer years ahead than there are behind. But that doesn't make me feel old, per se. I think the other posters are right, you're asking two questions:

1. When do you stop feeling like a youngster?
2. When do you start to feel old?

I stopped feeling like a youngster when I took my first full-time job that didn't end when school starts. And I only feel old when I've been up all night with sick kids, as I was last night. But that's a temporary thing.

[Prodigal]

Voted to see what the poll results were & realised that my reponse was based only on old being older than my current age, in my 20's I thought 30 was old, now I think anything over 40 is, so I guess the good news is that should I ever get to my late 40's that will still look a helluva alot more attractive than being in my late 50's. Looking at "old" as applies to other people then I'd have to lump with when you become infirm or got loopy at which point I would guess life looses some of its sparkle, my grandparents are 95 & 96 this year, & they are without any shadow of a doubt old in every sense of the word.

[yesdachi]

I hit the big four-oh this year, and came face-to-face with the realization that there are probably fewer years ahead than there are behind.

Well that is an interestingly morbid way of putting it.

Hope your kids feel better. My wife and child are home sick today.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I've always thought of the mid-forties being the time when people start to make the transition from being adults to becoming elderly, which they truly become at around 60.

[Strike For The South]

25.

[Koga No Goshi]

Wow, would you look at that spread. ;) It seems like everyone when forced to pick a number has a unique idea of where the "cut off is."

Count Arach, I realized when making the poll that Id idn't want to ask the question that I had already created for the thread title. Because I think our answers for "when are you elderly" would be much more easily defined. So I qualified old just as, "I would find it strange if someone called that age young."

I have a theory, and it's just a theory, that the definition of young is very narrow when young, and gets wider to older people. For instance a 17 or even 21 year old might call a 27 year old "Old." But then I hear my mom (mid 50's) referring to even early 40-somethings as "young kids." I think that our country is aging differently than it used to, as well. It's more common now to see people in their early or mid 40's with newborns, or very young children, instead of people in their late 20's or early/mid 30's which used to be more the norm.

[Don Corleone]

I hit the big four-oh this year, and came face-to-face with the realization that there are probably fewer years ahead than there are behind. But that doesn't make me feel old, per se. I think the other posters are right, you're asking two questions:

1. When do you stop feeling like a youngster?
2. When do you start to feel old?

I stopped feeling like a youngster when I took my first full-time job that didn't end when school starts. And I only feel old when I've been up all night with sick kids, as I was last night. But that's a temporary thing.

Be very careful with thoughts like that... it leads to improper financial planning into retirement. I'm 2 years younger than you and I expect I'll probably see 80, but my financial plans are solid out to 90, assuming I retire at 68.

I think old is 5 years younger than whatever age I'm currently at. Honestly, I think questions like these are only relevant when you're young. Maybe I could define the end of youth then better than the beginning of old. I'll say the end of youth is when you stop caring about getting old.

Given some of the 50 year olds I see running around with sports cars and 20-something wives, trying to fake being 20-something themselves, I'm not so certain my definition of youth is something to be embraced however.

The older I get, the more existential I get, and the more I appreciate 'right now'. And I agree with Insane Apache... the older I get the less I know. Amazingly, the older I get, the WISER my father gets, as each and every day, something he said that I was convinced he was wrong on is yet again proven to be correct.

[Koga No Goshi]

Be very careful with thoughts like that... it leads to improper financial planning into retirement. I'm 2 years younger than you and I expect I'll probably see 80, but my financial plans are solid out to 90, assuming I retire at 68.

Holy crap, at 38 your financials are set until 90? Must be nice.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Holy crap, at 38 your financials are set until 90? Must be nice.

Don's a Knight. My actual job as a Knight's agent is to help brothers plan and protect....and yes, we do use 85/90 as a target goal. Don's just a notch ahead of the curve.