Mind the age gap: 20 polite reminders that the doors are closing on your youth 

“You will not, under any circumstances put this in your column,” said the other half as we exited the tube station at South Kensington, him still looking shocked, me barely able to contain my delight at what had just occurred.

We had been standing in the carriage of a Piccadilly Line train, en route to my friend Dave’s sixtieth birthday party, when a young woman sat in a “priority seat” for seniors and the like stood up and said to my partner, “please have my place”. I watched as he declined with a flapping of hands and then spun around to face me, going into a panic-induced conversational mode in an effort to avoid eye contact with the would-be seat-donator. He began telling me, almost verbatim, about an article that he’d recently read in The New Yorker but I couldn’t focus as I was shaking with trapped laughter. Because while he’s a bit of a grey fox, he wears his age well, which made this all the more marvellous.

Getting older is an honour – too many people lost along the way for you to think fretting about a creased face is acceptable – but still, when we are forced to confront how other people view our wrinkles, well, it can sting. We all, me especially, like to delude ourselves that nothing much has changed over the years but that clock is kicking. Here’s how I know this to be true.

1.
My Instagram feed is full of ads recommending testosterone-boosting injections to ramp up your energy (and another thing).

2.
You have items in your wardrobe that are older than some of your colleagues. And you still wear them.

3.
You make cultural references that leave those same colleagues either staring at you blankly, or surreptitiously typing into Google to find out who the hell you’re talking about.

4.
You still think people use Google.

5.
You have a Facebook account, unused, but still there.

6.
On epic journeys you like to have a “real” map.

7.
When you go to the flower market, just as it’s opening on a Sunday morning, you pass the location of a long-gone nightclub where, on occasion and in your twenties, you might have been known to have exited at this very same time.

8.
Younger colleagues ask you questions that imply you were born in Victorian times. “Did they have cars when you were young? Or did you go everywhere by horse?”

9.
You have friends who you have known for decades. People who have never failed you. Friendships that have endured even when you have worked together for 19 years.

10.
You get up at 06.00. With no effort.

11.
You need IT support. Constantly.

12.
You need arch support, also constantly.

13.
Your bathroom cabinet has creams that promise more miracles than Jesus.

14.
You think millennials are young people.

15.
As fashion edicts change about sock heights and the cut of jeans, you stay your course. It will come back around you think (correctly).

16.
You’d rather not drive at night.

17.
You click through on one of those testosterone ads to see what it entails. Shrunken testicles? Perhaps better to go for the Saturday afternoon nap alternative.

18.
You keep quiet about your age (partly because it takes a moment to recall the exact number).

19.
You’re dismayed when someone offers you their seat on the subway.

20.
You know stuff. Life stuff.

After the party we made the return journey by London Underground and stood up just as the train was entering Russell Square station. For some reason, the driver had to slam on the brakes, the train jolted and the other half fell backwards, landing on the lap of a young muscular man the size of a baby bison. But rather than complain at having a gentleman of a certain age perched on his knee like a mature lap dancer, he simply said, “are you OK sir?”. “I have been totally humiliated tonight,” muttered the other half as we finally exited the station. I proffered my arm for added stability. “And I am serious about the column,” he reiterated. Really, I don’t see how I could have had a more fun night out.

To read more columns by Andrew Tuck, click here.