Scott Adams is apparently under the opinion that we have a permanent age:
I’ve observed that everyone has a permanent age that appears to be set at birth. For example, I’ve always been 42 years old. I was ill-suited for being a little kid, and didn’t enjoy most kid activities. By first grade I knew I wanted to be an adult, with an established career, car, house and a decent tennis game. I didn’t care for my awkward and unsettled twenties. And I’m not looking forward to the rocking chair. If I could be one age forever, it would be 42.
It would explain a lot of my permanent age were something like 37 or 39, which would explain the sort of “out-of-place” self-perception I’ve had since I was a kid. A more likely explanation is, of course, some sort of innate social “otherness” or something, but next to “I’m too smart for my peers” this permanent age thing sounds like the next best option!
I’m the kind of person that has always been better inside a relationship than outside of one. I make a better boyfriend than a suitor and a better husband than a boyfriend. And for most of my life I wanted kids and by that age I’d theoretically have them. Also, the older I get (ie the closer to 37-39) the less out-of-place that I feel. I was terrible socially in junior high, better in high school, better than that in college, and have taken to the whole “making money” thing better than I took to schooling.
Also, I’m not sure why, but when I was a kid I had a sort of fascination with the late 30’s. Most of the characters I came up with for my lamebrained little stories were between 37 and 39. Maybe I’ve just always known. Or I’m smarter than everyone else. I could really go either way.
-{via Dustbury}-
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4 Responses to My Permanent Age
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I make really a good angry ex-girlfriend. Alas, my talents are wasted in a happy marriage.
I heard Rosie O’Donnell say that because her mother died when she was 8, she is emotionally stunted at that age (or something to that effect). That worried me because I had a similar circumstance (and cause Rosie freaks me out). Some people seem like their stunted at a younger age than they are, which gave rise to my theory about drugs and alcohol preventing one from maturing.
But I like your idea of some people being the opposite — being set to middle age even when they’re young. So it’s like, it takes them a long time to grow into themselves.
The concept of a permanent age makes sense to me, though I’m not quite sure where I stand on the spectrum. I was reasonably social in elementary school, less social but still okay in high school, totally antisocial (to a near-pathological extent) in college, but returned more or less to normal right after college and have stayed around that level for the past 25 years. As this progression was not a steady one, unlike yours, it doesn’t seem to be anything that the permanent age concept can explain.
If I absolutely had to pick a number, or range, I’d say that my permanent age is probably in my early to mid-30’s. I’m far more physically active than most men in the late 40’s (which, of course, isn’t saying much) and seem to have a more youthful outlook on things.
Why not just call it 38 then?
38 never had that good of a ring to it.