Pushing in

I’ve made friends with the female baristas at a cafe near Wynyard Station. They welcome me by name and know my coffee order. Those little things put a smile on my face in the morning.

It was crazy busy when I walked in yesterday and they accidentally ignored a middle-aged male waiting to place his order and took mine instead.

I realised I’d nabbed his spot in the queue and apologised profusely.

Afterwards I thought what I should have said is: “Now you know how it feels to be a middle-aged woman trying to get served at a bar.”

But he seemed like a nice middle-aged man so we just chitter-chatted about caffeine instead for a few minutes.

On the subject of middle-aged males, one of my friends disagreed with my desire to de-age, which I expressed earlier this week after seeing the new Indiana Jones movie.

He thought it was a weird desire because he didn’t really care too much about how he looked.

I didn’t read the rest of the comment because I felt so dizzy about the differences between middle-aged men and middle-aged women.

I just dashed off a response that said: “You are lucky – you look very young for your age and you are male.”

Society is happy to let middle-aged men age. But middle-aged women not so much.

News.com.au ran a headline this week that read: “Gabrielle Union defends wearing thong bikinis at 50”

Apparently she had been slammed by a troll who criticised her for wearing thong bikinis at 50.

There are so many things about this story that annoyed me.

Like, how am I so out of touch that I don’t know who Gabrielle Union is?

And who are news.com.au kidding that they actually care about whether Gabrielle was trolled? They just wanted an excuse to run pics of her butt.

And who is Gabrielle kidding that someone said ‘You’re old enough to be somebody’s grandma, why are you still wearing swimsuits?’

Because whoa, she doesn’t look like somebody’s grandma.

And having a figure like that in a bikini is the exception rather than the rule at 50, yet social media is making us think we need to aspire to that in middle age.

Men can go grey and get craggy and have dad bods and society still deems them to be silver foxes.

Last time I checked grey hair, craggy faces and mum bods were not widely regarded as foxy for women.

So it’s no wonder I fantasise about my face being de-aged.

I feel ashamed of its decline.

I know I shouldn’t say that. I should be proud of my lines and their character. But if I could afford plastic surgery and it wasn’t going to hurt and I was guaranteed it wouldn’t go wrong then I’d probably bloody sign up for it.

When I finally read my friend’s full comment about de-aging last night I saw he’d made a really good point. He said: “I think this just starts an arms race …Then we all strive to be young, and will judge people who don’t look young as not making enough effort. Then we’ll increase the ageism that is already crippling.”

But it’s too late. Society already judges people who don’t look young as not making enough effort.

PS On a random side note, I heard someone at Wynyard pronounce it Win-yard. I knew immediately they weren’t local cuz it’s Win-yud luv.

P.P.S So. Much. Jackhammering. Last. Night … so I look even older than usual this morning.

P.P.S.S Have a great weekend, sorry I’m a grouch.

Song of the day: Visage “Fade to grey”