See, now I'm curious whether you think I'm your age because you assume that most people you encounter are in your age group, or because of my posting style or references I've made to stuff...
Hmm, good question. I guess I'd say that generally I can tell if someone I'm discussing stuff with online is significantly outside my age range -- either a lot older or a lot younger -- because the style of their online "speech" and the cultural references they make are different. But I couldn't really point to something specific and say, "Yeah, that's why I think she's about [x] years old!" It's just more like a general feeling.
In Stargate fandom, too, the odds are good that most people I encounter online *are* going to be in my own age range; it seems like online SGA fandom, at least the ficcing part of it, concentrates in women around the same general age as most of the series' stars. Back when I was in anime fandom, I was usually the oldest person in the room; it was usually assumed that most people in the fandom were somewhere in the 15-21 age range, and there was a *very* different style of speech and just different feeling to the fandom generally. Similarly, a lot of Star Trek fandom (well, TOS and TNG fandom) is older than me by a couple of decades, and I get a different "feeling" talking to people in those fandoms. It's tough to describe.
I guess it's a combination of playing the odds, and just having generally gotten the idea from your posting style that you're a little older than me, but not much.
For me, "feeling old" is the sense of all the things I haven't done yet that I really thought I'd have down pat by now.
Ahhhh ... I see! It makes sense that it'd be a definitions sort of thing. I realized recently that I no longer get those weird flashes of "OMG, I'm living in my own house paying my own bills. I'm an ADULT!" I've finally internalized the idea that yes, I am a grown-up now, although it's still a bit weird when I encounter someone on a professional level (doctor, lawyer, etc) and realize that they're about my age. I'm still used to thinking of those sorts of people as being significantly older than me.
But I don't think of myself as "old", and I'm not entirely sure what would constitute feeling old, really. I guess to me, it would mean spending the majority of your time looking back, rather than forward. I get that feeling from talking to my grandmother, who's 90 ... she doesn't really plan for the future anymore, because she doesn't have much of a future left. There's something very sad about that to me, and that, to me, is being "old". You've gone about as far as you can and there's not much to go forward to. And it doesn't have to go along with being THAT old, either. My aunt, who's in her early 50s, was talking to me recently about how she decided not to plant fruit trees in her yard because she probably won't live to see them grow to maturity and bear fruit. And that's just ... to me ... I mean, why NOT plant the trees? You'll still get to watch them grow!
And I'm still planning on having a geek party when I turn 42. ;)
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Hmm, good question. I guess I'd say that generally I can tell if someone I'm discussing stuff with online is significantly outside my age range -- either a lot older or a lot younger -- because the style of their online "speech" and the cultural references they make are different. But I couldn't really point to something specific and say, "Yeah, that's why I think she's about [x] years old!" It's just more like a general feeling.
In Stargate fandom, too, the odds are good that most people I encounter online *are* going to be in my own age range; it seems like online SGA fandom, at least the ficcing part of it, concentrates in women around the same general age as most of the series' stars. Back when I was in anime fandom, I was usually the oldest person in the room; it was usually assumed that most people in the fandom were somewhere in the 15-21 age range, and there was a *very* different style of speech and just different feeling to the fandom generally. Similarly, a lot of Star Trek fandom (well, TOS and TNG fandom) is older than me by a couple of decades, and I get a different "feeling" talking to people in those fandoms. It's tough to describe.
I guess it's a combination of playing the odds, and just having generally gotten the idea from your posting style that you're a little older than me, but not much.
For me, "feeling old" is the sense of all the things I haven't done yet that I really thought I'd have down pat by now.
Ahhhh ... I see! It makes sense that it'd be a definitions sort of thing. I realized recently that I no longer get those weird flashes of "OMG, I'm living in my own house paying my own bills. I'm an ADULT!" I've finally internalized the idea that yes, I am a grown-up now, although it's still a bit weird when I encounter someone on a professional level (doctor, lawyer, etc) and realize that they're about my age. I'm still used to thinking of those sorts of people as being significantly older than me.
But I don't think of myself as "old", and I'm not entirely sure what would constitute feeling old, really. I guess to me, it would mean spending the majority of your time looking back, rather than forward. I get that feeling from talking to my grandmother, who's 90 ... she doesn't really plan for the future anymore, because she doesn't have much of a future left. There's something very sad about that to me, and that, to me, is being "old". You've gone about as far as you can and there's not much to go forward to. And it doesn't have to go along with being THAT old, either. My aunt, who's in her early 50s, was talking to me recently about how she decided not to plant fruit trees in her yard because she probably won't live to see them grow to maturity and bear fruit. And that's just ... to me ... I mean, why NOT plant the trees? You'll still get to watch them grow!
And I'm still planning on having a geek party when I turn 42. ;)