Decoding 'You Look Good for Your Age': A Journey from Ageism to Acceptance

I bring this up because I was out recently with some friends and a person who was not part of our group , that doesn't know us , asked one of my friends how old they were and she said I'm 56 . And the other person said Wow , you look really good for your age .

And that sparked a whole conversation and a mixed bag of opinions and you know I had to really think about it . I'm like I don't know . First of all , I'm pretty unflappable . There isn't a lot that you can phase me with or bother me with or certainly not offend me with .

You know you can take some guesses how I feel about people being offended by , by words and things . I mean that's . You know it's just silly to me . So you know I mean . So I guess , right off the bat I'm like I don't care . I mean I'm going to take it as a compliment because I want to look good for me .

My age I want to look good for any age that I'm at . I want to look , you know , as as good as I can . I want to look my personal best , which my personal best may be better or worse than somebody else's personal best . But you know , I don't really think we should be comparing , even though we do . We do , we're just human , we can't help it .

And if I see a woman that is will will go with older than me , if I see a woman in her 60s , I'm 50 . I'm turning 52 next month . So if somebody says to me , hey , you look really good for your age , I'm taking it as a compliment . I feel like it's a compliment . I don't think it's an insult . Now there's a . You know the actress .

Her name is Angela Bassett . She's been around for a long time , long time . She has a beautiful , stunning woman . Again , she's beautiful at any and every age , that . So I guess what her point is is that you don't need the , the qualifier , or technically , they're calling it a backhanded insult . So do you think it's a backhanded insult ? I , I guess maybe .

Maybe it is , but it's certainly an unintentional one . It's not a malicious one . I don't think anybody says that with a like a malicious intent , you know , with that snarky for your age Tone in their voice , I think it's like , I think it's a genuine wow . But here is let's see if I can find it here is what what she had to say about it here .

Oh , I hear that a lot . I don't like this either . It's a backhanded compliment . Right right , you look good for your age , you know , with that look in the eye , oh my God , I'm just shocked . You just , you just feel like , oh my God , I should look like a troll , a wish , with a quick nose and you know .

And my face skin should be like dripping off my face and my blood should be as wide as a scout . What ? And you look bad for my age ? Oh my God . It's not a compliment . He was like thank you , I don't know . I mean , I guess you could look at it that way and see it that way and perceive it that way and maybe you wouldn't be wrong .

But I'm just feeling like I don't know , maybe it's just my personality type , that I'm just like , whatever you just told me , I look good , I'll run with that . I'll run with that part of it , thank you . I don't take offense to being told for your age , because I think what people are doing like I know this for myself , so have you ever ?

I have , I've seen it a bunch of times , especially recently . I'm going to try and throw up a few images here . But when I personally think about women in their 50s , from when I was a kid , like from the 70s , from the 80s , oh , my God , even from the 90s what years were the Golden Girls on ? I need to find this out . I'm gonna check it out .

So let's use that as a reference , because there is a meme that has gone around of a picture of the Golden Girls with their ages at the time , or at least their character's ages at the time of that show , of that series , and it was a little stunning and I'm gonna show it to you . I'm gonna hunt it down , show it to you . So here it is .

Yeah , so when I think about the fact that I'm turning 52 and they were in that age range at that time , I mean we are not the same and I'm not like patting myself on the back , I'm not saying I look great or anything like that at all , just saying we look really different and part of the theory is the hairstyles . So you have to check this out .

Thank you for being a friend . Travel down the road and back again . Your heart is true , you're a pal and a convedom , and if you threw a party , you invited everyone to know , you would see , the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say thank you for being a friend .

Okay , so there's something to that , right , and , of course , a lot of different things . Way less of us . Less of us , yeah , our smoking cigarettes , right , we were more conscious of our health and our appearance . Not just that they didn't care about their appearance , it was just different . It was just very different .

Different times , different motivations , different beauty standards too . Things change over the years . So I guess , when

some . I guess my only point being is that we're not the same . My only point being is that when somebody says to you , wow , you look really good for your age , they're comparing it to a standard that they remember from their childhood , probably , or from their youth .

That like , wow , when I thought of you know , and we do stay locked in our young minds in some ways . Right , I mean , we mature and all those things , but there's certain things I think that we stay locked in on , and I think that's one of them .

Like it's our default setting that when we think about certain ages , we have this automatic picture in our mind . Usually it's our own grandparents at the same age . You know , when I think of gosh , I'm thinking my grandparents .

They were both in their 60s when they passed , and my grandmother was a young in early 60s , so we think she never actually told us her real age . But you know , for example , I look at my husband , who is 60 , and it's like , wow , that's what 60 looks like now , interesting , that's very interesting .

But then you see 60 on somebody else and you're like , whoa , that's a big difference . You're 60 and you're 60 are so different , so different . So , all in all , I think asking the question or making the statement of you look good for your age my personal opinion is not an insult . It's the compliment that it's meant to be .

Take it as such , say thank you and move on . But I really wanna know do you think it's a compliment or a backhanded insult ? So let me know .