How Not To Act Old

Dancing to a sexy song, especially an old sexy song, is probably all right as long as there aren’t any other people around, particularly any young people. But if young people are watching, attempting to get thoroughly enough lost in moving to the music to enjoy it, much less be any good at it, will be impossible. All that snickering will make you too self-conscious.

Plus, you know, sexy dancing is different these days. People put their arms over their heads and thrust their hips toward the rear ends of their partners as if they’re doing it doggy style, and really, I don’t want to see you doing that.

Sure, it’s baffling. Of course, those mushrooming applications like Digg and Reddit and Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter are overwhelming. In fact, I sometimes suspect that half those things are not real but a plot by people under 35 to drive us insane.

But the important thing is not to admit how overwhelmed you are. “I don’t understand why anyone would use Facebook instead of email” or “We still don’t know how to work the TiVo” are things you must not say publicly.

Just quietly hire a 14-year-old boy as your tech consultant. Or act as if you’re above the whole technology tsunami — You’re so cool, you’re unGoogleable! — rather than swamped by it. Use it, or don’t use it. But don’t act like it’s cute to be befuddled by it.

Telling otherwise-competent adults to pack an umbrella, wear a sweater, or go to the bathroom before they leave is one big way people act old. It’s as if you can’t stop being the world’s mom, or you’re so highly invested in knowing best that you’ve got to point out the obvious, or you’re so insecure about your stature that you’ve got to take over the management of the most mundane tasks.

Lighten up. Let other people take care of themselves. You in the process will feel younger and freer. And if they’re chilly later, they’ll have only themselves to blame.

My daughter lives in Paris. She’s the editor of a magazine there called Self Service. And my son: My son goes to Yale. Let me tell you all about them.

Or maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.

Going on and on about your grownup children is one of the prime ways people act old.  It’s not the fact of having adult children that makes them seem old, it’s talking as if their kids are the most interesting thing about them.  As if their children are the ones with the noteworthy lives now, as if their own lives are beneath mention.

So mention that you have kids, by all means.  Say what they’re up to, if you’re asked.  But don’t make them your main topic of conversation.

My husband says all the ways not to act old can’t be depressing (i.e., things he himself does), so as #1 I offer up using language that has no right to come out of lips that are more than 45 years old….make that 35….make that 14.

Using too-young slang is akin to wearing a yellow miniskirt or driving a Zipcar: It makes you seem older because you’re trying so hard to be comfortable with something that was obviously minted by and for a generation that came way after yours. Yeah, I have one post-40 friend who can say awesome in what sounds like her native tongue, but most people in the middle ages shouldn’t try to say anything more modern than “cool.”

Of course, you don’t want to swing too far the other way and use outmoded words like keen, neat, or smart.

Groovy is acceptable when used with irony. Great is always okay.

But rad? Ill? Tight? Please.