We all age differently -- something that we can thank/blame in equal parts on our lifestyle habits and our genes. But no matter how we age, there are some things no one over 50 ever wants to hear:
1. "How nice of your son to take you to brunch!"
While it would be nice if your date was indeed your son, in this case it's your husband. Here's what former FLOTUS Barbara Bush had to say to those who thought she looked considerably older than her husband, George:
"I don't like it, to tell you the honest truth," she said in an interview during her husband's campaign. "I'm not going to lie to you about that. It hurts, of course, but what you see is what you get. I can't do much about that," she said. "There are a lot of people I'd like to look like, but I don't have that choice. I feel very strongly that you shouldn't want what can't be."
Bush did dye her hair for 10 years after it turned prematurely white at age 35. But she quit when she grew tired of spending hours in beauty salons and didn't like her hair turning green when she swam in a chlorinated pool.
"(George Bush) didn't notice," she said, when she stopped coloring it. "I mean, I think George likes me the way I am." Besides, she said, "When you're married to someone, I think you see what you want to see."
FWIW, at least on Reddit, people were split on the Ewww Factor of men having their daughters be mistaken for their wives or dates.
2. "Gee, I haven't seen you around lately. Are you OK?"
When someone is older than you, the immediate assumption is that something must be wrong when you haven't seen that person for awhile. Nothing is wrong. Why do younger people rush right to a dark place? Death is not imminent when you are 50, even if you think so when you are 25.
Older people take time off to do things like launch a political uprising (Occupy Wall Street), write their debut novel at 60+, or climb Mount Everest for the third time at age 80 -- and two years after hip replacement surgery. Plenty of older people jump out of airplanes, rock bikinis instead of chairs, and are still enjoying full and active lives. What? You think calling in sick when you want to go to the beach stops when you hit 50?
3."We didn't think you'd want to join us."
This is when the office lunch bunch lets it slip that they are meeting up for drinks after work. Yeah, and you -- who rushes home to babysit the grandkids or watch your son's soccer practice -- weren't invited. So to some large extent, it's fine that you weren't invited because you wouldn't really want to go anyway. But there's one problem: It doesn't feel good to feel left out. Older people often say they feel invisible. Oversights like this fuel that feeling. It would be better to invite your older co-workers and let them politely decline; don't decide things for them.
4. "Did people really marry for money back then?" (And other "back then" questions.)
Being 50+ doesn't actually make us cultural historians. Yes we may have lived through the '60s and '70s but everyone's memories are filtered through their own experiences. So maybe think of us as the Wikipedia of your world: We are experts but are sometimes inaccurate. We know lots of useful things like you can remove just about every stain with baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, but no, I don't actually remember the milkman delivering milk and eggs to our house in Mineola, N.Y. (I have, however, seen photos of our front porch with the silver "icebox" by the front door.) And yes, teenagers in the 1950s and early 1960s were actually schooled by their mothers to fall in love with a rich person instead of a poor one. It was called getting ahead.
5. "Wow! You still surf (or ski or skydive or hike or have sex)!"
The only surprising thing about the "you still?" questions is that younger people still are surprised that older people do these things. It is the rule, not the exception, that people in their older years are still functioning.
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