WHAT’S MY AGE AGAIN?
During my fledgling years as a magazine journalist, around the turn of the millennium, I was dispatched to Manchester’s Granada studios to interview the cast of Cold Feet, a hit comedy drama that followed the social lives of a group of thirty-something friends.
The schedule was intense. I spoke to Robert Bathurst and John Thomson on set between scenes, then Hermione Norris over coffee; I made a pathetic attempt to flirt with Helen Baxendale and Fay Ripley in their trailers; afterwards, I set off to dinner at a swanky restaurant in the Northern Quarter where I would spend the evening with James Nesbitt. ‘Tonight, Toby, we shall drink Sancerre,’ he declared, glint in the eye, unmistakable Ulster brogue in full effect. ‘And we shall drink bloody lots of it.’
Have I ever written a paragraph that reads quite so outmoded? With references to 1990s telly totty sounding almost as atavistic as boozy journalistic assignments, quite possibly not. But this is in part the point. Because it was on the evening in question that I first gave serious thought to the nature of age.
Jimmy – as James inevitably became known a short while into our second bottle – had a theory that he was keen to share, possibly because he felt it explained his compulsion to get leathered on a school night. ‘All of us, I believe, exist as two ages throughout our lives,’ he said. ‘Now, my birth certificate says that I am 35. But in here,’ he pointed to his head, ‘I am 19. What’s more, I always will be. How old are you?’ ‘I’m 23,’ I said. ‘And how old do you feel?’ ‘Not sure. About 18, I guess.’ ‘You see?’ he cried. ‘That’s why we’re getting along so well! Let’s order another one…’
It’s a conversation I’ve recounted many times, not just to brag about my close relationship with démodé players in regional comedies, but because it’s one that continues to resonate. Despite being in my mid-late forties, I often feel decades younger – and not always or often in a good way, at least not any more. These days it’s less a feeling of callow invincibility than one of temporal dissonance. It can lead to imposter syndrome: do I deserve responsibility? Am I taken seriously? When am I going to feel like a grown-up? It can also cause a jolt when you catch your reflection in the mirror and realise you’re no longer the fresh-faced, indefatigable, lean machine you once were.
All this came to mind recently when I read an article in The Atlantic about something called ‘subjective’ age. It concerned a Danish study from 2006 that posited much the same as Jimmy had been claiming in a sauvignonsoaked dining room some years earlier. Having surveyed 1,470 participants, the study, led by David Rubin, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, concluded that adults over the age of 40 generally perceive themselves to be aro
