Poll: Should You Lie About Your Age?
Posted by: Catherine Strawn
Filed in:
news, polls
11:00AM, Thursday April 9th 2009
In this week’s issue of Time, the magazine asks feminist author Suzanne Braun Levine whether women should lie about their age. Levine has a new book out, 50 is the New Fifty, and she believes that society has a mental block about people older than 65. “And I was not so afraid of being old or being that age as I was of being pushed aside by people that I still had a lot in common with and wanted to stay connected to, particularly women in their 40s who were in their own kind of inventive process and who had a lot to say about their lives that I was interested in,” Levine told Time. She was worried that people would stop thinking she was relevant after becoming eligible for Social Security.
When a bunch of us were talking about lying about our age, most of us haven’t cut back a few years. In fact, we’ve actually aged ourselves so that people would take us more seriously! The only times we’ve thought about going down in age is when we want people to think we’re prodigies.
Not that it’s okay, but society seems to be less obsessed with age, and more obsessed with how old you look. If a woman who is 50 years old looks more like 40, then she is praised. Maybe we should just stop considering age, and make it something that no one talks about, like income and STDs. [Time]
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Kiki T
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 11:22 am: [report]
No way, laying about your age only adds to the problem of ageism…did I spell that wrong, or am I too old to spell properly?
Kiki T
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 11:23 am: [report]
oooh, lying that is, not laying…damn, get me my medicaid!
powplz
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 11:31 am: [report]
Lying about your age seems pointless to me ... Unfortunately, most of my experiences with the college kids in my town have been so negative that it’s a large part of why I try to come off as a few years older in hopes of being taken more seriously, especially at work.
That said, some of my best friends here go to the local uni and are super cool, it’s just the most visible perception that I avoid being lumped into. I also hate when people at work automatically lump me into the same category as their children, who are usually at a very different point in their lives than I am despite similar ages.
@kiki - medicaid is need based, medicare is age based.
bogart4017
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 01:03 pm: [report]
joyy—-i’ll cosign with an exception. I don’t think age should be discussed at all…it stilts conversation and once you’re past 21 you’ve done it all anyway (well most of it). If your outlook is far more advanced than your peers it’ll shine through without adding years to your age. Those that group you with people your physical age who have nothing to do with your mental age are sometimes suffering from a superiority complex (“they need to know i’m older and they should respect me”). I don’t even want to do into this species.
nemesis1
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 01:16 pm: [report]
You shouldn’t lie about your age because that’s LYING. Doesn’t what rationalization or explanation you have. To lie in and of itself is wrong. The ‘because’ doesn’t matter.
Does ANYONE here believe in a moral reason for ANYTHING?!!
powplz
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 01:16 pm: [report]
bogart - on the nose with the superiority complex. But you have no idea how many conferences I’ve been to where speakers talk about connecting with the youth (etc) and say things like “half the younger folks in the audience are probably looking at their cell phones right now.” It makes me want to stand up and scream “No, some of us DO have manners” (which is why I don’t actually do that
).
I basically try to set an example for folks in the generations past mine that not everyone around my age is a floundering moron who can’t dress themselves professionally or last a day without their cell phone. I get more surprised/positive reactions than not on the off chance that someone asks how old I am though - I just hate the visible/stereotype of my generation at large, but that’s to be expected towards the youth at any given point in time I guess.
Sofjna
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 02:56 pm: [report]
I never lie about my age because people always think I’m younger than I am (hopefully because I look younger and not just act it). I love telling them my real age.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 04:00 pm: [report]
@Sofjna: I make jokes about my age. For example when I buy booze I get carded quite often, because I think I look absurdly young to be drinking, so I spin it “Apparently I’m not drinking enough”, the old grizzly liquor store owners usually chuckle.
retro chic
wrote on April 9 2009 @ 04:37 pm: [report]
I like that “Fifty Is The New Fifty” book title and look forward to wearing it *one day.* If age is only a N°, then just say the d*mn N°! Another hint is when people set their clocks forward, altho, that’s just to fool themselves, but why lie even then? Gimme your age and time straight between the eyes!
yukisukinomoto
wrote on April 11 2009 @ 11:08 am: [report]
Maybe it’s just because I’m not yet at that age where I’m worrying about how old I look, but I think unless you’re in the room with a cannibal, eating people from the oldest to the youngest, you have no reason to lie about something like that.
If it’s going to get serious (if it’s for a relationship, that is), then eventually he or she will find out.
I hope.