10 Signs You’re Getting Old

You think you’re still 20 years away from retirement? Think again: your clothes, your habits, your driving style or the fact that you bought a sophisticated dishwasher instead of a full HD plasma TV might be good signs that you’re almost there already.

You don’t have that many beer buddies

Saturday night used to translate as “the night when we drink indecent quantities of beer and make complete asses of ourselves while trying to get a chick to go home with us”. Is that still right? Not anymore, huh? That doesn’t really go well with your buddy that’s a member of the Parent Advisory Council for elementary school or the guy that’s performing open heart surgery on Monday. So you end up talking to yourself in your apartment, watching Risky Business yet another time and falling asleep on the couch with the lights on. My friend, you are getting old.

You’re buying seated tickets to rock concerts

Used to be you’d buy first floor circle tickets so you can shake your head to the gods of rock. Now the people that do that scare the shit out of you. Yeah, you still like the jam, but you’d rather like it from a comfortable seat, sipping a glass of medium dry Chardonnay and wondering what ever happened to ZZ Top.

You’re rooting for the cops during street protests

Back in the day you put together your own little street protest regarding recycling/gay people’s rights/Jenna Jameson retiring from the industry or whatever else was trendy back then. You might have even gotten laid on the beach or in a dark alley because of it. But those days are gone, now you’re annoyed by that kind of stuff, you think the cops should just tase their way through the crowd and send everyone home. They were blocking the Starbucks entrance anyway.

You really hate teenagers

Oh look at them and their wacky looking clothes. They’re so disrespectful, ungrateful, they think they know everything, they’re so cliche and look at those girls they hang out with. Too much makeup, too much money spent on brand name purses. And all that free time they have that they’re wasting with inconsistent, useless occupations.

You’re worried about your cat’s mental health

Every meow your cat makes makes you feel guilty of neglect, because you haven’t seen it the whole day, because you work so much, because you don’t buy it the most expensive treats. Then, in the evening, you play with your cat for 30 minutes to one hour, hoping to make your pet feel better and gain some self confidence. You go to sleep thinking of strange cat mental disorders your other friends have discovered in their own companion like Separation Anxiety or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

You leave the game early to beat the traffic

See also: live concerts, movie premieres, weddings, funerals. Now really, is there any event in the world that really requires your presence until the very last second? Because every 5 minutes you spend at the soccer stadium equals 45 minutes of being stuck in traffic on your way to the highway. Nevermind that your team will probably score a winning goal at the very last minute, you got yourself up to one extra hour of peacefully staring at your walls or playing with the aforementioned cat.

You’re looking for different things in women

Can’t go wrong with a hot chick doing a keg stand? Not your thing anymore …

As a young man in this world your decision making pattern about women would be a mix between the amount of drinks you threw back, the amount of time since your last lucky night and her cup size. Simple, yet efficient. Now you find yourself weighing in complicated features like self respect, what will your co-workers think of her, the possibility of a future together, her literature preferences and the fact that she gets drunk four times a week and likes to get a little pervy really gets you off.

You’re behaving like a Japanese tourist

Getting stoned in Amsterdam? Getting laid in Berlin? Not really what you’re looking for since that memorable day when you bought the Lonely Planet travel guide. You’ve got bookmarks all over it and now you mostly care about the 17th century Golden Age of Amsterdam or visiting the building where the Greater Berlin Act was signed in the 20th century. You also own a Nikon camera and bought an extended battery for it. You’re also wondering why you’d make fun of Japanese tourists that did that no longer than 5 years ago.

You’re over planning every road trip

Remember when you first got your license? It was a license for freedom, experimenting, overcoming the physical proximity issues you’ve had with your internet girlfriend, an adventure every weekend. In one word: manhood at its best. Now any trip longer than 50 miles requires more planning than launching a space ship, triple checking the oil level, making sure your friend’s still got your spare key and he knows what your fish likes to eat and how much water your plants need, calling your mom, cousin and landlord to make sure they know about your whereabouts and, of course, going to your bank to make sure your credit cards will work out of town.

You’re getting out of your vehicle and asking for help with your parking

Yes, there’s a lot of room, but it’s best to be safe than sorry

Sure you didn’t care about this a few years back, but 10 feet per hour is still moving and the trauma caused by one little parking mistake could still be lethal. Seriously, you read that in the Sunday paper which you really only bought for the free DVD and because you were up at 9 am on a Sunday

In the event you find yourself in any of the situations above, but not in more than five, there is still hope.

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