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Age Infidelity
How long can you go before you crack?
By M.K. Apruzzese
Published: Dec 01, 2007
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One of the best birthday parties I ever had was my 36th, which was held at a trendy bowling alley in New York’s famously fun Greenwich Village.
The night of my birthday party, my new group of unisex, thirty-something friends and I, drank to our hearts’ content, adopted bowling aliases like “Rolling Thunder” and “Peaches on Fire” and tossed caution and gutter balls to the wind. It was a fantastic 36th birthday party. Except for one thing…I had just turned 40.
Being unfaithful to one’s age has ignited debate for decades. The general consensus seems to dictate that it’s mostly women who defend the lie, claiming that there are “roadblocks” for older women that men don’t face. However, results from a recent college study regarding online dating, posted by Squidoo.com, found that 24% of men lie about their age in their online profiles, as opposed to only 13% of the women. It was the third big lie right after weight and height, respectively. Personally, since we know these respondents lie anyway, I think they were lying about lying.
We all know the lengths we go to in order to prevent people from knowing our age. A peel and prick here, a lover 10 years our junior over there…okay, way over there. And if my thirty-something bowling buddies had looked closer, they would have seen that I was taking just a wee bit longer to get out of my “strike!” pose than they were.
So, when that little fib comes out of our mouth, is it really believable? A poll conducted by The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery revealed that 11.5 million surgical and non-surgical procedures were performed in 2005 in the U.S. alone. Not surprisingly, nearly half of those occurred between the ages of 35 and 50….the years when we are forced to face, flee or cover the truth. But what I found interesting was that the numbers dropped to 23% from ages 51 to 64. Is this because these 23% were satisfied with the procedures they had done years before or because they just discovered a more natural way to live? I wonder.
Although I confess to preferring Botox over bangs, my quest to be younger became official when it was validated by an outside entity: The Law.
Now, the reason I started lying about my age in the first place, wasn’t entirely my fault. I don’t want to point fingers, but I really do have to blame the chatty lady behind the counter at the New York DMV. It was she that wasn’t paying attention and typed in the wrong year, not I. It was she and New York that legally made me four years younger. And if New York State said I was younger, then who was I to argue? Have you ever tried to fight the state of New York? Exactly. Everyone knows nowadays it’s not about the truth; it’s about possessing legal documents.
But, as I turned and walked out of the DMV, I started worrying, which is what we older folks do. I started thinking that maybe I did fill out my paperwork wrong. Maybe subconsciously I had wanted to be younger so badly, I had put down a later year of birth. And, if the state found out, I could be arrested for falsifying legal records. My heart beat wildly and my mind raced. What to do? I considered turning around, running back inside the DMV and letting the lady behind the counter know what she had done. But, then I looked down at the legal document that said I was born four years later than I was. I took a breath, composed myself and returned to practicing saying my new age out loud.
From that point on, I was giddy inside at the thought of outsmarting the government and Father Time. I hadn’t told my new, younger friends my true age. It never occurred to me that I didn’t look just as young as they did…which exposes another byproduct of turning 40: delusion. But, just to erase any measure of doubt, I started nonchalantly leaving my license with my new age face up, around our Hampton’s summer house. This backfired slightly, because after a while nobody entrusted me to hold anything of value as they thought I was absent-minded.Maybe in some areas of the country age isn’t a big issue. But in certain metropolitan areas and industries, the thought of not being young and hip can actually throw people into convulsions. I know. I have seen it and I have lived it and I am here to tell you it ain’t pretty. I am sure that one of the reasons I was so obsessed with being younger is because I started pursuing a music career in my mid-thirties. By day I was a New York magazine publisher, and by night I was a singer/songwriter about town (in addition to being a chronic worrier, I am confident the doctors would find I have ADD- if I could sit still enough to be diagnosed).
While I was working my way through the mire of twenty-something music executives, it seemed knowing too much was a dead giveaway for my age. One young producer even said I sounded like his mother. Good grief! So I found myself “dumbing it down” to appear younger. Apparently it worked for the people helping me. I never lied to them, mind you; but, I didn’t correct them.
Finally, when I turned 37 (41), I told my new music management team that I was not the age they thought I was (they assumed I was younger; again, I had chosen not to…well, you know).
“Well, how old are you,” they asked. I paused and took a deep breath. There were so many numbers swirling around in my head, for a moment I forgot how old I actually was. But then I remembered I was 41. And now, faced with the moment of truth, I spit it out. “33,” I said. Well, it was progress.
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The night of my birthday party, my new group of unisex, thirty-something friends and I, drank to our hearts’ content, adopted bowling aliases like “Rolling Thunder” and “Peaches on Fire” and tossed caution and gutter balls to the wind. It was a fantastic 36th birthday party. Except for one thing…I had just turned 40.
Being unfaithful to one’s age has ignited debate for decades. The general consensus seems to dictate that it’s mostly women who defend the lie, claiming that there are “roadblocks” for older women that men don’t face. However, results from a recent college study regarding online dating, posted by Squidoo.com, found that 24% of men lie about their age in their online profiles, as opposed to only 13% of the women. It was the third big lie right after weight and height, respectively. Personally, since we know these respondents lie anyway, I think they were lying about lying.
We all know the lengths we go to in order to prevent people from knowing our age. A peel and prick here, a lover 10 years our junior over there…okay, way over there. And if my thirty-something bowling buddies had looked closer, they would have seen that I was taking just a wee bit longer to get out of my “strike!” pose than they were.
So, when that little fib comes out of our mouth, is it really believable? A poll conducted by The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery revealed that 11.5 million surgical and non-surgical procedures were performed in 2005 in the U.S. alone. Not surprisingly, nearly half of those occurred between the ages of 35 and 50….the years when we are forced to face, flee or cover the truth. But what I found interesting was that the numbers dropped to 23% from ages 51 to 64. Is this because these 23% were satisfied with the procedures they had done years before or because they just discovered a more natural way to live? I wonder.
Although I confess to preferring Botox over bangs, my quest to be younger became official when it was validated by an outside entity: The Law.
Now, the reason I started lying about my age in the first place, wasn’t entirely my fault. I don’t want to point fingers, but I really do have to blame the chatty lady behind the counter at the New York DMV. It was she that wasn’t paying attention and typed in the wrong year, not I. It was she and New York that legally made me four years younger. And if New York State said I was younger, then who was I to argue? Have you ever tried to fight the state of New York? Exactly. Everyone knows nowadays it’s not about the truth; it’s about possessing legal documents.
But, as I turned and walked out of the DMV, I started worrying, which is what we older folks do. I started thinking that maybe I did fill out my paperwork wrong. Maybe subconsciously I had wanted to be younger so badly, I had put down a later year of birth. And, if the state found out, I could be arrested for falsifying legal records. My heart beat wildly and my mind raced. What to do? I considered turning around, running back inside the DMV and letting the lady behind the counter know what she had done. But, then I looked down at the legal document that said I was born four years later than I was. I took a breath, composed myself and returned to practicing saying my new age out loud.
From that point on, I was giddy inside at the thought of outsmarting the government and Father Time. I hadn’t told my new, younger friends my true age. It never occurred to me that I didn’t look just as young as they did…which exposes another byproduct of turning 40: delusion. But, just to erase any measure of doubt, I started nonchalantly leaving my license with my new age face up, around our Hampton’s summer house. This backfired slightly, because after a while nobody entrusted me to hold anything of value as they thought I was absent-minded.Maybe in some areas of the country age isn’t a big issue. But in certain metropolitan areas and industries, the thought of not being young and hip can actually throw people into convulsions. I know. I have seen it and I have lived it and I am here to tell you it ain’t pretty. I am sure that one of the reasons I was so obsessed with being younger is because I started pursuing a music career in my mid-thirties. By day I was a New York magazine publisher, and by night I was a singer/songwriter about town (in addition to being a chronic worrier, I am confident the doctors would find I have ADD- if I could sit still enough to be diagnosed).
While I was working my way through the mire of twenty-something music executives, it seemed knowing too much was a dead giveaway for my age. One young producer even said I sounded like his mother. Good grief! So I found myself “dumbing it down” to appear younger. Apparently it worked for the people helping me. I never lied to them, mind you; but, I didn’t correct them.
Finally, when I turned 37 (41), I told my new music management team that I was not the age they thought I was (they assumed I was younger; again, I had chosen not to…well, you know).
“Well, how old are you,” they asked. I paused and took a deep breath. There were so many numbers swirling around in my head, for a moment I forgot how old I actually was. But then I remembered I was 41. And now, faced with the moment of truth, I spit it out. “33,” I said. Well, it was progress.
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