Totally agree at 44, R50.
[quote] For what it’s worth, I’m in very good shape, a lifelong athlete, white, have all my hair. Just look tired, sallow and like shit.
You don't look 'like shit.' You look normal. Aging is normal. It's more than normal; it's inevitable. People who mutilate themselves with anti-aging surgeries and procedures don't look younger at all. They are disfigured. They may smooth out and fill in areas but it is abnormal looking, not youthful.
Middle age is the period of transition between young adult and elderly. We think in those binaries for some reason, as if "normal" is looking 30 until you suddenly look 75. That's not how it works. It's gradual.
Reset your brain's understanding of what's normal.
When you look in the mirror, you see yourself in extreme close-up and you see things no one else on Earth sees. The lines, the wrinkles, the sallowness looks normal to other people and it looks like damage to you.
You may be tempted to smooth out all those wrinkles, and look in the mirror and see no wrinkles at all. Many people do this now. Click on the link to see what 'success' in smoothing everything out to look 'normal' ends up looking like.
Age one, age five, age 10, age 15, age 20, age 30 all look extremely different from one another, do they not? Well, the aging doesn't stop there. It IS normal. Imagine someone having surgery at age 20 to look age 10 or age 5. That would be insane, right? Insane. Abnormal. It is no less insane to expect to look at 45 as you did at 30. Biology doesn't do that.
[quote] Finding it hard to cope with my new invisibility.
You didn't say how old you are, but I will guess you're in your 30s.
I'm not young but I am old enough that I've primarily met other gay men via some online forum my entire life.
At age 18, I was inundated with messages every time I logged on, attention from people my age and people 60 and over, endlessly. It was annoying as hell. I evaded and ignored people because it was overwhelming.
Some felt predatory. That stopped in my early 20s and from then on it was still lots of attention but the unhinged old men went away.
Literally the day I changed a profile to age 30, interactions with other people dropped about 50 percent. It was alarming. I hated being swarmed by horny guys online all the years leading up to that, but by then, I felt like something was wrong with me with the sudden lack of attention. It dropped more and more every year.
I think around 38 was the year I felt truly invisible. Most people wouldn't respond to me if I showed my age on my profile. At least 30-40 percent more people would contact me if I didn't show my age.
By age 40—INVISIBLE. It hit hard, despite coming on gradually.
Now I am 44. I really don't care. I never, ever feel a desperate need for attention. It's very freeing. And when I was young, I was a sex addict. I had no choice but to break that addiction by age 40, and I'm very glad. There was never any fulfillment in random hookups for me—excitement, adrenaline, yes, but always disappointment after it was done.
In the end, I am way more content.
You need to recalibrate normalcy in your mind.
Getting older is normal. It's normal. It's normal.
Fighting it is crazy.