Age Infidelity

How long can you go before you crack? by M.K. Apruzzese


I do have one friend, Kelly, a stunning actress now in her late forties, who was much braver than I.  Kelly confided in me how she finally came to terms with the aging-actress syndrome, so she shed her guise of youth by cropping her hair and letting it go gray. As a result, Kelly started landing national commercials and now has a recurring role in a popular soap opera.

Conversely, my friend Maddie is an attractive and spiritual actress in her mid fifties, who has also been trying to make it for many years.  She keeps her hair dyed with its brilliant red color of yore and chooses to ignore the aging process.

“Hollywood is vain,” Maddie admits, “but that’s the industry I am in so I fight to look younger. I have faith that the universe will provide me with the perfect role to showcase my talents.” And, as if on cue, the next day the universe provided her with the role of the grandmother in a local production of Pippin.

Which leads us to another point: just because you tell people you are younger, doesn’t mean that all of the sudden you look it.

Youth–obsessed industries are one thing, but well-meaning friends tend to exacerbate this problem. They compliment each other by saying, “Oh you look much younger than your age,” when, in truth, most people do look their age, or at least within a few years of it. That is, of course, unless they have had tons of cosmetic surgery. In which case, you then know they are older because nobody could possibly look that perfect. Or, well, odd.

The “friends telling you what they think you want to hear” aspect was glaringly illustrated to me by a man I met via online dating. His age on his profile stated 41, and his photo was blurry, so it was hard to tell exactly how old he was. After talking to him on the phone, I had the distinct impression he was not 41. His voice, the words he chose, everything screamed late 40s.

When we finally agreed to meet, he looked so far from his photo that I literally walked right past him. My date finally confessed to me that he was 48 but put down 41 in his profile to attract more people.

“Besides,” he said, “all of my friends tell me I could pass for 40.”

What I want to know is who are these friends? I mean, don’t they realize when they tell someone this, they may actually be hurting them, rather than helping? It just goes to show us that we can’t always believe someone when they say we look younger.

In the end, it was a turn off to me that my date lied about his age because I perceived him as insecure, one of the least sexy traits on the planet. But, it made me realize that if I was turned off by someone who lied about their age, then others must be thinking the same thing about me.

Eventually, being unfaithful to one’s age becomes exhausting. In my denial years, I had to remember to not mention that I voted for Ronald Reagan for president…the first time he ran. I also had to become a math wiz, calculating quickly in my head to leave out the first 10 years of my life and half of my jobs in my twenties. I wasn’t supposed to know any of the commercial jingles from the 1960s; and that was a great decade for jingles! In short, I started opting out of conversations altogether as it was just too difficult to think that fast.

Although I still hesitate when the age issue comes up, I have embraced my newfound age of 46. Maybe it had to do with the law catching up with me when my license came up for renewal, or maybe it’s because I have come a long way in not caring what others think. Either way, accepting my reality has been accompanied by a sigh of relief, which feels a lot better than the worry of being found out.

Often I reflect about what one of my boyfriends in my twenties use to say about lying. “To be a good liar,” he would say, “you need to have a good memory.”
 
Something to think about when the memory lapses start hitting you at age 42.
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