People seem to take great joy in judging other people by what they wear, how they look, even their age. If you do the social media thing you might have seen that my day did not start out so well. I had stumbled onto a series of tweets that started with.
“Men over 55 arriving at work in Lycra should be illegal” I am not going to identify the tweeter, but I certainly don’t follow them anymore as well as anyone else who took part in the age/fat bashing that followed. Seems that he should be ashamed of himself for being sweaty, tubby and too old. Because no one wants to be greeted by that when they arrive at work. I guess that he should give up his efforts at being fit and hide at a desk in the back so that the attractive people don’t have to see him.
As I am 56 and would not look good in Lycra I took this rather personally. You know what, no one ever in my life would pick me out of a line up as a handsome man. And now that I have gotten older you know what? I’m fat, not morbidly so, but I am not going to be mistaken for a workout nut. I’m okay (mostly) with that. Right up until someone a few decades younger than I am tells me what I am supposed to fucking wear. I have so much rant in me right now about this that I am going to have to force myself to stick to a few salient points before I write a book on this topic.
- Really? Mocking someone who is trying to get fit?
- How does their age matter? Please tell me where I can go to brush up on what people my age are allowed to wear.
- He was “Sweaty”? How dare he sweat near your preciousness!
- This had such an impact on your life that you had to jump on social media to let us old fat fucks know just how “ewww” we all are?
- This impacts everyone on your Timeline who might not meet your standards of attractiveness.
- It pissed me off enough that I am writing this post instead of finishing my badly written sex story.
Molly has written about this (and as per usual far better than I) on her post Age Inappropriate. I know how much worse this kind of schoolyard behavior is for women than it is for men. But that doesn’t mean that it is okay, It is not ever okay.
So while I doubt this post will be read by the tweet author I hope it might be useful for everyone to have a think about this. While I am firmly on the side of expressing your opinion I would hope that you might pause briefly and consider the impact your thoughtless words might have on others.
Because I have considered what impact these words might have on you. And I wouldn’t say anything here that I would not say to your face.
Michael
P.S. Time will be a better teacher on this subject than I ever can, now pardon me while I go buy some Lycra so I can piss someone off.
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