What age constitutes "old"?

[Koga No Goshi]

Just curious how people perceive "getting old." I don't mean "when are you elderly?" I mean "when can you not rightly call someone young anymore?"

[Hosakawa Tito]

Feeling old is a state of mind. Or as my favorite Great Uncle said to me, "If you can figure out how to age without getting old, do it."

[Koga No Goshi]

Feeling old is a state of mind. Or as my favorite Great Uncle said to me, "If you can figure out how to age without getting old, do it."

See, in my "head", 30 has always been that cut off of, okay, young time is over. I don't even know why, really. My coworkers laugh at me over it, since I am the youngest in the office by 14 years.

[CountArach]

You are asking two questions, you know that right? First you ask "What age constitutes 'old'?" and then your poll asks "When does being young end?". It ignores the middle ground. So which one do you want me to answer?

[Ja'chyra]

Totally depends on what you are at the time.

I'm 33 and don't think I'm young anymore but I also don't think of myself as old. But then if you happen to be 6 then someone who is 16 is going to be old.

[InsaneApache]

I thought that 30 was more of a watershed than 40 TBH. Funny, I used to worry about getting older when I was in my twenties more than I do now. I'm about 16 months from hitting the big 50 and I never give my age a thought these days.

In fact t'other day I was talking with an old schoolfriend of mine and I made a comment like "I went to bed last night and I was 28, I woke up this morning and I was 48, where the hell did the last 20 years go!"

I'm still 17 in my head, though another thing I've noticed was that when I was 17 I knew everything, then when I got to my twenties I realised that they was a few things I didn't know about. In my thirties I discovered a few more, same for my forties. At this rate I'll be pig ignorant when I'm eighty.

[pevergreen]

My dads hitting low fifties and he isnt old, I'm going to have to say 60+. As for being young ending, around 38.

[Big_John]

'young' is always about 10 years ago.

[Viking]

It ends when you're the oldest person in the world, I'd say.

80 years might sound old, but my grandmother is 96, and there are people at 110 years+. Embrace relativity.

[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.

[drone]

See, in my "head", 30 has always been that cut off of, okay, young time is over. I don't even know why, really. My coworkers laugh at me over it, since I am the youngest in the office by 14 years.

30 comes from Logan's Run.

Physically, the real number is like 35, you just don't recover like you once did after that. Mentally, old age happens when you let it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That, and marriage.

[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.

[Martok]

You are asking two questions, you know that right? First you ask "What age constitutes 'old'?" and then your poll asks "When does being young end?". It ignores the middle ground. So which one do you want me to answer?

^^^ What he said.


I'm not really sure when being "young" ends. I myself am 31 (going on 32 come December) -- but only rarely do I act like it, and I certainly don't feel like it. I suppose once I hit 40 I'll maybe have to admit I've entered middle age, but who knows?

For someone to be "old", I used to think that one would have to be *at least* 60 to qualify. However, my own father is now 60 himself, and I definitely don't think of him as being old -- aside from being diagnosed with Type II diabetes last year, he's in as good a shape as he's ever been, and he still has pretty much the same lifestyle as he did 25 years ago. So I guess I don't really have a strict cut-off line there, either.

Not that it really matters to me anyway. As Hosa put it, age is more a state of mind than anything else. You're really only as young/old as you feel.

[Kekvit Irae]

30. I'm two years away.

[InsaneApache]

Oh and another thing they don't tell you.My dad was 30 when I was born, so I really only remember him being 35 and above.

In 1995 when I was 35 I got up to go to work and went for the usual shower, and shave, as one does. Imagine my disquiet when I looked into the mirror and saw my father at 35 looking back at me. I nearly crapped myself.

It was about this time that I realised I was going to die, I'd always known on an intellectual level that I'm mortal but this was different. Like scales falling from my eyes.

Anyroad, old age starts at 90.

[lars573]

In 1995 when I was 35 I got up to go to work and went for the usual shower, and shave, as one does. Imagine my disquiet when I looked into the mirror and saw my father at 35 looking back at me. I nearly crapped myself.

I've seen that since I was 20 (although my brother was the one weirded out by it). My dad didn't really age until 45.

[Herkus]

Being young ends with 33, because Jesus died at that age.

[Tribesman]

Being young ends when you become a miserable old git .
It can be when you are 10 or 100 .

[PanzerJaeger]

If you are over 25, you're already dead to me.

[naut]

Being young ends when you become a miserable old git .
It can be when you are 10 or 100 .

QFT

[Sigurd]

If you are under 25, your opinion is irrelevant.

[InsaneApache]

It's long been my contention that when you have kids you keep them until they are 12 YO, then they are taken away and put in a camp somewhere, ones like you see on the telly in the old war films. Barbed/electric wire, guard towers and minefields and of course the 'cooler'.

When they get to 25 you let them out, on licence of course.

Repeat and rinse.

[Husar]

If you are under 25, your opinion is irrelevant.

That's why I'm not offering mine.