15 Things Americans Start To Find Utterly Annoying as They Grow Older
When you’re young, it’s hard to imagine becoming the cranky older person many of us meet. However, biology often has different plans.
As we age, our bodies undergo hormonal changes that can lead to emotional imbalances, contributing to the grumpy reputation some older individuals develop. Difficulty hearing, pain, and dementia are other reasons that older people sometimes experience unattractive mood changes.
Of course, not all older grownups are grumpy. Nevertheless, these are some complaints we’ve heard from people in their golden years about things that never used to bother them but now do.
1: My Time
Life is too short to waste time. But what one considers “wasting” time sometimes changes with age.
Maintaining friendships with people they dread seeing, keeping up with a reputation they don’t identify with, and watching mindless TV are some of the things that drive some older people crazy when their younger selves used to embrace them.
2: Mystery in the Mirror
Looking in the mirror and not recognizing (or being willing to recognize) the reflection can be irritating for some older people. It can be hard enough when one is younger; as many as eight out of ten women don’t like what they see in the mirror.
Nevertheless, no matter how someone felt about seeing themselves in the mirror in their younger years, grey hair and wrinkles in the reflection most certainly weren’t part of the equation.
3: Aging Parents
Most kids don’t think about their parents getting older. Heck, people in their 20s often don’t consider it. But there comes a time in many people’s lives when they suddenly have an aging parent in need of assistance.
Depending on the person’s childhood and history with their parent, the grown child may feel resentment towards a social expectation to help care for them. Guilt can also be a feeling that grown children feel when they’re not able or choose not to be as present with their aging parents.
4: Burn Baby Burn
According to Harvard Health, when a person reaches middle age, they begin losing approximately 1% of muscle mass each year. That slows the strength of their metabolism, making it easier to gain weight by eating the same foods they ate in their youth.
The bottom line? Gone are the days when one could eat all the cheeseburgers their heart desired without gaining weight. However, young people often have an “It’ll never happen to me” mentality.
5: Cautious of Crowds
Agoraphobia isn’t in the average American’s vocabulary. However, the fear of being in a place where one feels helpless can become increasingly common with age. It can also be a reason that many older people hate crowds when their younger self never minded them.
When an aging person feels that their movement is restricted, it can psychologically cause them to start hating crowds. The anxiety about being trapped in a situation where one can’t easily get out of independently is often the cause.
6: Listen Up
Contrary to what you might think, neuroscientists discovered that older people are more sensitive to sound than younger people. Ironically, they attribute these sensitivities to hearing loss.
We won’t deep-dive into the science behind it, so here’s the bottom line: Many young people love blasting music. But as they age, they may find that while they need to turn the volume up due to hearing loss, they hate excessively loud noise.
7: Too Tired to Care
Some people who used to love a feisty debate in their younger years start hating conflict engagement as they get older. A reason could come down to a lack of energy.
As people age, it’s common to develop health issues that come with a side effect of fatigue. Heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis are some examples. Engaging in conflict just doesn’t feel worth the battle like it used to for some people with a fatigue-inducing condition.
8: Pants Problems
Many young women love rocking a pair of skinny jeans, and men enjoy a good pair of jeans too. But as some people age, they suddenly go from loving to hating pants.
There are several reasons for this, including it being harder to zipper and button jeans with arthritic fingers, expanding waistlines, and no longer having as youthful of a shape to show off.
9: Explicit Content
Movies, songs, and everyday conversations with friends are often loaded with explicit content. That didn’t bother some older people when they were younger. But now, some detest it.
10: Against Everything
Circling back to the biology of why older people develop grumpy tendencies, some older people develop irritation at everything. One of the reasons for this could be because they don’t like seeing the world change around them and not being able to keep up with it.
Older people also may not agree with the ways younger generations think, wishing society could return to the “good old days.”
11: Open Mindedness
Younger people have a tendency to have strong convictions about what they believe is truth. But as a person ages and gains more life experiences, they often change their perspective on certain things. Whereas their younger self valued sharing their knowledge as fact, their older self may value listening and being open to changing their point of view.
12: Traffic Troubles
Drivers 65 years and older have the second-highest accident rate on the road, right after teenage drivers. Although seniors contribute to traffic issues, some report that they have less patience for sitting in traffic compared to when they were younger.
Then again, this could be a case of memories morphing with time; If they could go back in time and talk with their younger self, it’s unlikely they’d be thrilled about sitting in traffic.
13: Be Nice
Social media has made an already tough landscape for bullying even more difficult, and many older people are seeing through it. Even though the development of social media is recent, some older people didn’t value the concept of being kinder to their peers.
With wisdom and age, some older folks now hate it when they see people being bullied even though their younger self may have been one.
14: Family Matters
Often, it doesn’t take someone reaching retirement age to start hating something that no longer bothered them. Some people who used to post photos of their kids and family members on their social media profiles now regret it and loathe when others do the same. They wish they could go back to when people only shared family photos with those they were closest with.
15: Money Frustrations
Whether it’s a t-shirt or a car, older people often become tired of buying things that don’t last as they age. A car can be an especially sensitive point for some older folks. The average person owns at least eight cars in their lifetime.
However, as older people near a point in their abilities where driving may not be possible in the coming years, it can feel frustrating to spend money on a vehicle when their younger self would have looked forward to it.
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