I think everyone feels old sometimes. When someone says ‘you’ to you for the first time. If you can’t walk for the rest of the week after a staff outing because of muscle pain. When someone stands up for you on the bus or subway. If you have to scroll on a website for minutes before you get to your year of birth.
But feeling old and actually being old are two different things.
I think somewhere above 50 the twilight zone starts. That you increasingly say to yourself: hey, I didn’t have that before.
When your boss is younger than you for the first time. If you dread going to a concert in a football stadium. If you are increasingly relieved when people cancel an appointment. Somewhere in that period you are old for the first time. But when that is, and how bad that is, is often not clear.
And so I made a handy test with which anyone of any age can easily determine whether you are officially old, or just temporarily have less, er, affinity with the zeitgeist. I was helped by twitterers with a overwhelming number of suggestions came.
Make it and you’ll know!
1You understand that you should read a column with self-mockery, and never involve yourself 100 percent.
You even know what a column is. For every yes 10 points.
2You start an email with LS and end with ‘yours sincerely’.
You regularly use expressions such as ‘damned’, ‘on the twit’, ‘on the spec’, and ‘in the marital couch’. 5 points for each yes.
3 You’re still on Twitter.
10 points.
4You think that students, and in fact no one at all, should have an electric bicycle, except yourself.
5 points for each yes.
Every app comes in with a loud ‘dzjing’ because you don’t know that the sound can be turned off.
You text with a straight index finger, you hold your phone to your ear instead of like a cracker in front of your face, you still write periods and capital letters ‘on WhatsApp’ and you say ‘smartphone’ or ‘mobile phone’ instead of ‘phone ‘. 3 points for each yes.
6 You have trouble with ‘woke’ and constantly ask what that is.
10 points for each yes.
7 You think they used to design nicer cars (it is true).
5 points.
8 You know who or what Ted de Braak is.
Martin Brozius, Willem Ruis, Ria Bremer, de Who knows quiz, Run your Rot and Enter it – and you are very happy to talk about it to colleagues who prefer not to. 5 points for each yes.
9 If you ask for a quiet table when making a reservation in a restaurant.
10 points.
10 If you say: ‘I have to’, instead of ‘I can work for another 14 years’.
When colleagues ask you how much longer you have to do. 10 points for each yes.
11 When you say ‘at work’ or ‘at my work’ instead of ‘at work’.
10 points.
12 Panniers, afternoon nap, telephone with folding cover, shopping note on paper.
5 points for each yes.
13 If you correct people (capitals, spelling mistakes, grammar).
If you regularly say that “realize” is not a reciprocal verb. 5 points for each yes.
14 If you convert everything into guilders.
And say the outcome out loud in front of others. 5 points for each yes.
15 If you enthusiastically start reminiscing based on the year of birth of the intern.
If you ask whether that young colleague has ever actually seen the band on his shirt, and then go wild about Pinkpop 1996. 5 points for every yes.
16 When you get moved when people greet each other enthusiastically at airports and stations.
If you are moved by pets. When you smile at parents with children, when you chat with the cashier. If you still pay at a cash register at all. 5 points for each yes.
17 If you need a younger colleague for many things on your screen (letters larger, full screen, sound, camera, etc.).
10 points.
18 If you complain that cooking time should be PRINTED LARGE on packages instead of in the middle of the instructions (but really!).
10 points
19 When you say things like: ‘we have it so good together’.
‘So, I’m sitting’, ‘how lucky we are with the weather’, and ‘what a beautiful country we live in’. 5 points for each yes.
20 If you think 1980 is twenty years ago.
And you don’t know that there is as much time between now and your year of birth as between your year of birth and 1917. 5 points for every yes.
21 When it finally rains again and you say: ‘good for the garden’.
10 points.
22 If you read the magazines of the ANWB, Eigen Huis, and the ABP.
20 points for each yes.
23 If with every story someone tells you have a similar story.
And if you’re going to spit that too. 10 points for each yes.
24 If you print your emails because ‘that reads better’.
90 points.