Do you feel older or younger than you really are?

When I was a kid I felt older than I was but now I feel a lot younger. At least, online. IRL I feel older. So much older.

 

All my life, I felt like an old man. In my family of origin, innocence, playfulness, and fun were viewed as immature. BUt it really asked the crude emotional immaturity of my parents.

Now, I finally feel like I've grown into my character. And I can go back and be playful, seek pleasure, seek fun. PArt ofthat playfulness is sexual play, too, which I never felt I could allow myself. Never too late.

 

Sometimes I feel like I act like anything but my age. I somehow like to listen to talks about semiotics once in a while, I'm also rather to myself, and my fitness level is equivalent to the typical 90 year old man. I think that's why the most engaging conversations seem to be with adults: I appreciate how older people tend to be more well informed and calmer in demeanor. But at the same time, I love to hang out with kids and make fart jokes with them. Also, I always find the kind of questions kids ask me really funny. (Isn't croutons just dry bread? You just said that tomato is a fruit because it has seeds, so do poppy seed muffins count as a fruit? Why isn't black tea called brown tea and green tea called yellow tea?)

 

I feel mentally as though I am about ten years older than I actually am. I prefer to read books about past eras and I stopped acting childish around the age of twelve. I had to pretend to be younger and more innocent then I was to fit in at school. Now I'm glad all that's over with and I can be my true, old-person self.

 

Older... and not in a good way. But my life lately is work/sleep/eat/work rinse and repeat, so that doesn't help

 

In perpetual adolescence and happy with that - being an adult is way too scary, I think it's because I realised I was bi then and in a wonderful and unexpected relationship and need to eternally maintain that feeling.

 

I don't feel like I'm 41 and I don't think I look like a 41 year old. Compared to some people my age, I'm wearing okay. I'd be stretching it to say that I feel like an 18 year old, because I really don't, but definitely don't think 41.