[Poll] Age Appropriate Clicking

[thefourthvine]

I'm reading a book that, well, it's good, but I'm getting that feeling I sometimes get, the sneaking suspicion that I am reading not essays but anthropology. Or xenology. My point is, the person who wrote this book is not like me. I'm pretty sure we're members of entirely different species, in fact.

And she keeps saying she talked to all her friends, and they all agree, and my basic thought there is, hey, maybe you should make some more friends. A social circle is more entertaining when you don't agree on everything.

Then it occurred to me that I should maybe check out her points of universal agreement with my friends (and acquaintances and people randomly browsing friends friends who are yearning to click on some buttons). So. A poll. Help me out, here, people, I am really truly curious.

Poll #6029 You're only as old as you click.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 721

View Respondents

How old do you feel? Write in the number.

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How old are you?

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Under 13
0 (0.0%)

13 - 18
8 (1.1%)

19 - 24
136 (18.9%)

25 - 30
217 (30.1%)

31 - 40
238 (33.1%)

41 - 50
81 (11.2%)

51 - 60
37 (5.1%)

61 - 70
2 (0.3%)

71 - 80
0 (0.0%)

Over 80
1 (0.1%)

Now, how does the first number compare to the second?

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I feel younger than I am.
471 (65.9%)

I feel exactly the age that I am.
151 (21.1%)

I feel older than I am.
93 (13.0%)

Which is most true for you?

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I'm pretty happy with where I am in my life right now.
491 (68.8%)

Overall, I'm not so happy with where I am in my life right now.
223 (31.2%)

Which is most true for you?

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I've accomplished most of what I'd hoped to by now.
154 (21.5%)

I haven't accomplished most of what I hoped to by now.
301 (42.1%)

I never really had those kinds of hopes or plans.
260 (36.4%)

You can take a pill to look twenty years younger. (The way you, yourself, looked 20 years ago, I mean.) This does not affect health or functioning, just looks. Do you?

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Sure!
131 (18.2%)

No.
589 (81.8%)

Gender?

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Female
680 (94.3%)

Male
19 (2.6%)

Other
22 (3.1%)

Comments

[scarletladyy]

If I took a pill to look twenty years younger, I'd only be nearly two xD

But, still, I feel younger than I am. I feel as though I've been stuck in a time warp since I became ill, so I've aged, but I still feel 18, because I haven't done anything :\

[ellen_fremedon]

Can I have a 'not now' answer for the magic pill? Twenty years ago I was fifteen, and I really don't want to go there again, but I would like the option to reconsider when the hypothetical pill would reset me at, say, 28.

[stasia]

If I took a pill to be 20 years younger, I'd halve my age and look, well, pretty damned good, I say. (I didn't agree at the time, which is one of those odd things - we never know how we really look, do we?)

I also never really had Life Plans, you know? I knew people who did and they always confused me. How would one know where one would be in, say, five years? I was never where I thought I'd be!

Stasia

[pocketmouse]

Frankly, the answer to whether or not I'm satisfied with my life/goals/etc changes every couple of hours. Whee, bipolar. And I would never take a pill that would make me look like I did 20 years ago (even without the fact that currently it would make me look 6, and it's hard to get work that way), because hello, body dysmorphia/gender issues.

[princessofgeeks]

yeah, see, i'm 49, so a twenty year reset irt looks would be fine. but honestly i don't give a shit. i'm happy now, i dye my hair, who cares?

[greyeyes]

My answer of 18 (I'm 25) is due to where I am in my life right now - despite a degree and plans, I'm living at home working a part-time job with no idea what exactly I want to do with my life. And my mother still begs me to clean my room (otherwise she's awesome, so yes, I'm fantastically lucky in that respect). So yeah.

Now if that pill made me 5 years old so I could have no responsibilities other than learning the alphabet and to count, I'd definitely consider it!

[loriel_eris]

Re the 'How much I've accomplished' - I went for 'haven't accomplished yet', but mostly I wanted an answer that said, "I have big hopes and dreams... I just don't know what they are yet. (Tho, I don't think I've accomplished them yet. (Or at least, I hope I haven't...))"

[thefourthvine]

See, this is precisely my point! The woman who wrote the book was all, "Who wouldn't take a pill to look 20 years younger?" And I was like, well, anyone under twenty, for a start. Probably anyone under 40, as well. Think before you make these sweeping statements, lady!

But I'm sorry you've been sick. A really bad illness is a time warp, in my opinion. It feels like your body is aging twice as fast as normal while the rest of you stays the same.

[chalcopyrite]

Though wrt that first question: I generally think of myself as still being about mid-20s, but sometimes I feel maybe 17 and sometimes I feel like I'm at least 20 years older than any one (of the adults) around me.

[james]

So I am 40 and feel 40, but had you asked me even a year ago I'd have said I felt younger than my age. But between finally getting a little maturity and some body parts breaking down, my feel-age has caught up.

I also feel compelled to say that everyone thinks I look 30, so the magic 20-year pill is pointless for me, if it isn't going to fix those health issues.

[soupytwist]

I'd be six if I was twenty years younger, which... wouldn't really be a good look. And I am naturally babyfaced, so my bigger problem is looking like I'm old enough for people at work to take me seriously!

[scarletladyy]

Exactly! And I'm not even sure I would in thirty or forty years time, because I know I wouldn't consider plastic surgery, even if it was 'pain and scar free'. Plus I'd look like the odd one out, and my now fiancé but future husband would look like he'd gone for someone half his age!

Thanks ♥

[helens78]

This, only I'd take any age starting from 18 and up. And then I'd be kinder to my body than I have been in the intervening 14 years. :)

[thefourthvine]

Well, one of the points of this specific poll is to demonstrate that many people under 40 (or so) do not really want to look 20 years younger, and neither do people who have made major identity changes in the past 20 years, and thus the problem might be with her social circle. So I didn't put that option on the poll. But, well, if the magic pill comes along, I hereby give you a raincheck: you can wait until you're 48 to take it!

[smilingslightly]

This is a lot like where I'm at. Not our actual ages but the feeling stuck because of illness and how it stopped cold the pursuit of most of my previous goals.

I went with mental age (a lot younger than my chronological years) rather than physical age (quite a bit older.) I dithered on taking the pill but then went with "sure" because it was easier to control how others perceived me when I was in my 20s than it is for me now. I don't have a whole lot of control over things in my life and I'll take back whatever I can get.

[via_ostiense]

Like soupytwist, if I were to look twenty years younger, I'd look six, which it would make it extremely difficult for me to do any number of things that I enjoy doing: work, go around town on my own, get a drink at a bar, purchase things with credit cards, see what's cooking on the stove, hang out with the +1 without people thinking he's a kidnapper, etc.

Even if the magic pill were to take me back to just 20, I still wouldn't take it. For one thing, youth doesn't translate into being perceived as competent, if one is female, and for another, I do my best to avoid falling into the trap of the feminine beauty ideal. The signs of wear and tear on my body say where I've been and what I've done, so I don't mind them. I'm fine with looking as old as I do, and wouldn't find it validating or appealing to look younger.

[thefourthvine]

I never had Life Plans, either. I married someone who is the most goal-oriented person on the planet. She has goals for both of us, because, wow, I just do not think that way at all.

[vickita]

I am 49. Do I take the pill? In. a. heartbeat. *g*

I feel much younger than 49. I *live* much younger than 49. (I always tell people that I was born 35 years old, and I will die 35 years old.) And I think it's true that I look younger than 49, although not twenty years. Five, definitely, easily... maaaaaybe ten on a good day and in bad light. *g*

I don't mind being 49 -- I like my life and everything that my years and experience bring to it -- but I would be lying if I said that I'm all that excited about looking 49.

[innocentsmith]

I had trouble deciding how old I felt, because it varies wildly between extremes of about ten years old and eighty. I'm pretty sure, however, that looking eleven wouldn't help.

[cofax7]

I had TERRIBLE HAIR at 26. I wouldn't mind being as fit as I was at 26, but that's not in your hypothetical, so I'll stay with how I look now.

[sid]

Mentally, I'll never grow up *g*, but physically I've always been older than my actual age. My hair started turning white at 13 and was noticably thinning by 30; I discovered at a noisy 15-year HS reunion that my hearing was much worse than other women my age; fallen arches at 35; cataracts beginning to develop at 40.

I would take that pill just to have thicker hair again!

[ahouseforrain]

I would totally take a pill in order to look ten. But only after figuring out enough stuff re: identity and legality issues that I could actually go back to elementary school.

Why? Because I think it would be hysterical, and it would leave me a lot of free time to write and study. Also, I might get a better grasp on how kids think and act if I'm forced to be in close company with them for long periods of time.

In case anybody was wondering how serious I am about my writing research.

[sophisted]

This. Same age, and I feel just about as young. Living at home really takes it out of you. The end of a long-term relationship really destroyed any "life plans" I had made and I have a degree I can't use because it's only good for teaching and there's a hiring freeze on educators where I am.

And when I moved back in with my parents, I had the added benefit of never having driven before and I just obtained a drivers license and now everyone is making me feel like a teenager again every time they mention driving or cars or how cool I must find it to be suddenly independent and mobile. Hi! I had been living on my own for over 5 years! I wasn't independent then? Mobility wasn't something I had just because I lived in a city I could ride bikes instead of drive? Gee.

*sigh* Sorry to vent on your comment.

[polarisnorth]

I have a feeling my answers would be vastly different a year or so from now; the difference between being in college (now) and being a recent college grad (next year).

[nextian]

YES, this is what I was thinking exactly. Though it looks like we've reversed answers. I feel so nightmarishly awful about my current courseload and thesis that I feel like I've wasted college -- but if I graduate, well, then, I will be par! I will even be par when I am jobless and meandering, like most twenty-somethings, weeping alone in an unfamiliar city.