Why I Lie About My Age
Ummmmm, because it matters? A lot? Don’t waste your time trying to convince me otherwise either. Definitely wasn’t born yesterday.
Yeah, it’s pretty serious. We really do use people’s age to judge them, not to mention ourselves (against them). If we’re older, we’ll compare their situation to where we were at that age. And if we’re younger, we superiorly (and naively) are utterly convinced we’ll be doing things differently. “Why, I’ll be married with kids by then!”, we smugly say to ourselves.
There are so many preconceived notions out there about what certain ages are supposed to look like. I think they’re ingrained in us to the point that sometimes we even do it subconsciously. We find out someone’s age, and then place a label on them and assign them characteristics their age group supposedly has. And labeling is extremely important when marketing something (or someone). It’s all about the label. Just look at wine bottles.
So if you’re on the market trying to ‘market’ yourself, do you really want that not-so-favorable ’single woman in her mid-thirties’ label plastered all over you? Our age-centric American culture with its ‘out with the old, in with the new’ mantra positions that girl as one who’s clock is ticking. Pounding to be more precise. She wants marriage and babies and all that jazz. Soon. There will be no time for dilly-dallying with this one; you’d better come with it!
So how attractive does that make her to you now? Let’s say you just met her 5 minutes ago but already have to start thinking about the next 50 years? Honestly. Sounds pretty intense to me. I’m not sure I’d date her. The pressure might be more trouble than its worth.
Most people, myself included, not gon’ lie, (on this particular matter at least), have an age bracket that we picture our significant other to be a member of. I’ve personally widened mine as I’ve gotten older, but the demographic still exists nonetheless. It’s currently holding on at about 26- 42. When I was younger though, there was a strict 2-3 year period they had to fall into or else they fell by the wayside.
So what if a guy has a really narrow margin and I don’t even get considered? Do I really have to be assed out just because I’m Generation X and he’s Y? What if we could bond on the shared Generation MTV connection? It’s not that I’m ashamed of my age, (since like Kenneth from 30Rock said, “We have nothing to be ashamed of except our bodies!” ;0) ) It’s just that I don’t want to knowingly handicap myself the second I get in the game. Why unnecessarily risk being prematurely disqualified?
And before you cast the first stone about my lack of being forthright, think about how you act when you first meet someone you really like. You probably put on a little show in the beginning, right? Everyone does. It’s common knowledge that letting it all hang out right off the bat is generally not the way to go. You always keep a couple details off the table in the beginning to be shared when the time is right.
The first couple of dates are like job interviews. Do you go to job interviews house because that’s how you’ll really be looking and late at that because late will be the general time you’ll be arriving once you settle into your new position? Of course not. You do whatever you can to make yourself look more attractive, especially if you know you’d be perfect for the job. You gloss over unattractive details and exaggerate the positives, (exaggerate being the key word here, since isn’t it just another word for ‘gentle lying’?)
So I’ll give a fictional age every now and then. I don’t like to do it, and much prefer avoiding the topic altogether. If the situation warrants an under-exaggeration of the truth though, I will buy myself a couple extra years. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it either. If my white lie gets my foot in the door with someone that I can see real potential with, so be it. The online tests that determine your ‘Real Age’ always put me at 28 anyway, so maybe I’m telling a half-truth? Half-truth half-false?
I haven’t always done this you know. The age adjusting is a relatively new phenomenon. Just last year I was telling it like it was. I was 33, a perfectly fine age, 3 being the number of creation and all. I was keeping it real. So what would lead a content 33-year-old to make such a drastic switch you ask?
I saw their faces.
Yes, once you’ve seen their faces, you wise up fast. Different men of different ages in different situations, all with the same shocked and appalled look on their faces.
Russell was the first to make the face. Russell was perfect for me. Tall like me, in his early thirties like me (32 to be exact), a study abroad programmer and Spanish as a second language speaker like me, grew up in the suburbs like me, seemed to have similar values to mine AND he was even a Libra for my Aquarius. We met at The Edison and were getting along swimmingly, the kind of swimmingly where you’re all up in each other’s faces because there’s so much to talk about and you simply must get everything in right then and there.
We were all up in each other’s grill for a couple hours before the subject of age came up. And the second I said I was 33, his interest faded immediately. We kept talking and he tried to hide it, but I distinctly saw the horrified look cross his face when I said my double threes. The “Peace out Napoleon” horrified look.
He never called either. All my friends were shocked. “But he looked so into you!” I wasn’t surprised in the least though. I could pinpoint down to the exact millisecond when he lost interest: precisely when my number came into the equation. That’s when our time together ran out.
A little while after that I found out my friend’s two older brothers went to Cal. So did I, (Go Bears!), so I asked him how old they were to see if I knew them. He said, “Amit is 29″, with no mention of the other one. When I finally asked about brotha #2, he goes, “Oh, yeah, but Chen is much older. Like 33 or something.” I responded with, “Wow, that is old.” Practically ancient it seems. Apparently so old that Chen didn’t even merit an initial mention. See, you do get overlooked when you’re up there.
The final straw came though when I was with a group of co-workers and somebody asked me what year I graduated high school. (Which sucked because I love when people ask me when I graduated college since I took a little extra time playing in the Dominican and therefore seem a couple years younger than I am.) There was no getting around the high school question though, so I said f’ it, 1992. I graduated in ‘92.
And I swear to you, (even though I’d understand if you didn’t believe me as this post is about my truth transgressions), the entire room got silent. I’m talking crickets. Mind you, these people were my contemporaries too, not a bunch of interns. They were grown-up adults working right alongside me.
Someone finally said, “But you don’t look that old!” Which is nice on one hand, but at the same time shows how up there he thought 34 was. I sometimes even get that comment when I say I’m 30, which I’ll take, (I’m not crazy!), but find a little disheartening. If 30 is ‘that old’, then what’s 30 plus four? Off the charts old?
And that’s when I started shaving off a few. When I shocked an entire room into silence.
I can’t say that I really blame them for being shocked though. I’m quite surprised myself as to how this whole mid-thirties thing has happened. It really snuck up on me. It’s stunning. I stun myself when I do the math nowadays. When did I become 34, the mathematical equivalent of ’shockingly old’? And it’s all relative. I remember how 34 used to sound when I was in my roaring 20’s. And it wasn’t pretty.
So when my birthday rolled around this year on February 14th and my friend asked me, “How old are you gonna be, 28? 29?”, I said 29. I couldn’t help it. Plus, 34 just wasn’t one of his options. I didn’t feel like answering out of the box either. He asked whether it was A or B. What was I supposed to do, yell C!!!!!? He might have thought I was crazy.
I’m not making the February 14 thing up either; I really was born on Valentine’s Day. Isn’t that funny? Cherie Amour born on the universal day of love. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
The success of my age reduction story is generally short-lived too seeing as I’m a terrible liar and always get caught sooner rather than later. My younger boo will ask me what he should get his older sister for her 30th birthday and I’ll be like, “Well for my 30th I really liked…” Or I’ll make reference to an old TV show and say “Challonge!” from The Cosby Show when we’re dancing and he’ll be like, “huh?” (And listen to this one: He’d never even seen The Cosby Show. Which actually was cause for concern, since all my Huxtable references were lost on him.)
The fact that I’m very inconsistent with the number I give out doesn’t help matters any either. I really believe in the whole “how old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” adage, so I just end up saying whatever age I feel that day. If I’m tired and feeling like I’m pushing 40, I’m 34 if I’m a day. If I have energy for days though, 28’s the magic number. Which combined with a terrible memory, basically equates to getting found out a lot. They do a little addition on the side and figure out the numbers don’t add up. Put two and two together and get five.
You probably think I’m completely overreacting to the whole age issue and want to say, “But Cherie, the 30’s are the new 20’s!” Well, let’s just agree to disagree then, shall we? Because my body surely does NOT know that I’m only 24. It’s clearly exhibiting 34-like behaviors and can’t hang even remotely like it used to. Can you please let my body in on this important piece of information!? And can you tell my face too while you’re at it? Because it sure does have a lot of ‘laugh lines’ for someone in her early 20’s. Something must have been really hilarious.
Plus, you don’t have to be all responsible & shii in your 20’s like you do in your 30’s. In your 20’s, you have time to work on being money. In your 30’s, you have to focus on making money. Times change, and inflation is a b*tch. It gets harder and harder to make ends meet. (And I’m referring to the ends of your belt, since you inevitably add on a couple stubborn ones with age too.) I never understood why my Grandma would stare at a picture of her when she was young for hours and even asked me to blow it up once. I get it now.
And in your 20’s you don’t understand that time is always of the essence. I know that’s precisely what makes them so great, but in hindsight I kind of wish someone would have told me back then that I should at least be mindful of getting older. Maybe then I wouldn’t have spent a year and a half going out with ‘Tafari’ and overlooking the fact that he was extremely heavy-handed with the sweet sensi when a couple months would have done the trick.
The problem when you’re young though is that you think you have all the time in the world to get married and start a family. You just assume it will magically happen when you’re ‘ready’ and you won’t actually have to do anything. Which leads to a pretty rude awakening when you watch 31, 32, 33 pass by and nothing happens. Then everything starts getting surrrious. I mean, thirtysomething was a TV show about ‘married couples and their kids’, not ’single girls getting it together’. (Even though I’m probably dating myself more by bringing up that show.)
Now everywhere I turn there’s some new study about women’s ability to get pregnant dropping dramatically at 35. Which could really do a number on me if I let it. I never used to think about my fertility, since I do yoga and always just assumed I could have kids until I was about 50. I think about it now though. Especially now that I’m ready for it all and it hasn’t happened yet. I’m a late bloomer, and it’s taken me a long time to get here, but I’m finally here now, so… What’s the hold up? Let’s get this show on the road. (I guess unfortunately there is some truth to society’s labels, huh?)
The waiting is pretty scary to be honest. I mean, I’m sure it’s right around the corner. That’s what all the signs point to. It would be nice for it to be right around the next corner though. Because you start getting worried when see yourself make four right corners and realize you’ve ended up right back where you started.
What’s interesting though is that even though it’s serious and it’s scary and blah blah blah, a part of me really likes getting older. (Okay, ‘being older’, ’cause it’s already happened.) I find love so much easier now that I know who I am and what I’m looking for in a man. I’ve had my heart broken, and I can draw on past experience to remind myself that there will be others. There’s a LOT of men in this world.
I’m smarter now too. No more going into relationships with my eyes closed and blindly repeating the same mistakes over and over. I know how to listen to my intuition, and have a tried and true man litmus test I use religiously. A test I was still checking for validity in my 20’s.
Yes, the ante is upped now that I’m in my 30’s. It’s a whole new game and the stakes are higher. I get it. But at the same time, I have more experience playing with the ‘big boys’. I know how to make the most of my hand and which bargaining chips to use. Sometimes I play my age card, and sometimes I save it for when the time is right. Besides, don’t the higher cards generally trump the lower ones anyway?
And there are so many more important things in this world to think about than dwelling on some silly number. I need to keep reminding myself to be thankful that I’m still alive and have had the opportunity to make it this far. To the ripe old beautiful age of 34. And I am thankful for that, I really am. Not everybody gets that chance you know.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
o my god. I was dying of laughter when I read “Challonge!” I’m 33 and was an avid Cosby watcher. Thanks for that reference. Your blog is great.
Cherie Amour says: awww, thanks GirlInTwoOhFo’! that’s so funny, i just made reference to the Cosby’s last night when Cliff was talking to Theo about money and how much Theo would hypothetically need as a grownup. Theo was sure he’d be fine and Cliff was like, “But you haven’t EATEN yet!” ;0) Fits in every now & then in the conversation. You should try it sometime.