As Old as Gold

“Too old to Rock ‘n’ Roll, too young to die” sang Jethro Tull (the prog-rock singer, not the rotational crop farmer and inventor of the seed drill).

Well, I recently bought a pair of ridiculously tight skinny fit jeans of the hipster variety, so I wonder what he would think about that? Now, I wouldn’t normally do something like this for two main reasons: a) they look ridiculous, and b) I don’t follow fashion and wouldn’t usually want to be seen dead in anything that, say, my colleagues or Noel Fielding might consider wearing.

So why have I taken this bold and radical step? Firstly, because they were only £10, and at a tenner a pop, even I can afford to make this sartorial mistake. And secondly, I currently have the skinny legs and snake hips to get away with it (for now). That said, these are so tight that they’re practically leggings—nearly as transparent as tights—and one cursory glance over the crotch area would probably give away what religion I follow, so tight are these jeans. I’m in a race against time with the onset of middle age which has been slowly encroaching since the age of 30.

Anyway, before I digress too much—there is another reason for this drastic purchase, and it is the most tragic reason of all. At the age of 34 (on the verge of being 35, in fact), I feel I am getting old—too old to even attempt to be fashionable any more—and at best, I have maybe a year or two left where I can get away with wearing this kind of attire. If I’m lucky. Any longer, and I risk being labelled “mutton dressed as lamb”—or whatever the male equivalent of that phrase is.

In a sense, I suppose I’m lucky to be bald, which rules out the option of me growing a ponytail during this horrible transitional phase I’m going through. I’ve already been getting tattoos on a regular basis for the last seven or eight years, and I was fortunate enough to get my ear pierced when I was younger, so there’s no chance I will get a sudden urge to do that now in some hopeless attempt to hold on to my youth. These would all be telltale signs of the phrase I’ve been trying to avoid using in this blog post so far, but even so, I’m probably just one Harley Davidson away from having a full-on midlife crisis.

In the hopes of assuaging my impending descent into old age, I’ve recently tried to make changes to my lifestyle, giving up smoking and cutting down on jaunts to the pub (and lusting after barmaids), which are both good ways to improve your health and bank balance, but are both ultimately boring to do without. Clubbing also takes a less prominent position on my agenda these days, mainly because I fear I may have turned into the man on the dance floor that I hated as a teenager: people over the age of 30 simply do not belong in nightclubs, and certainly not on the dance floor.

Maybe a potential saviour will arrive through the medium of online dating, but in all honesty, I do not have high hopes. Birds my age typically have children or other baggage (usually in the form of a mental ex), or are morbidly obese, or have some other unforgivable personality trait that has rendered them spinsters—shopping addiction, alcoholism, small breasts, and so on.

Sounds great.