Got a significant birthday coming up? One with a zero on the end? Wondering how to celebrate? Well, first establish your gender. If you’re a woman, you may want to think about having a syringe of fat or Botox injected into your face. But don’t tell anyone.
If you’re a man, you should consider taking on an extreme physical challenge and going at it until you vomit. Also, tell EVERYONE. In fact, start a Facebook page so the world can shower you with praise and money.
Because here’s what I’ve noticed: when confronted with getting older, women go quiet and men get loud. Even though everyone’s attitude to aging is much the same (deny and defy) we approach it quite differently. Women try to look younger with tools like injectables, fancy face creams, hair dye, sunscreen and new clothes.
Men? They try to DO younger. Endurance. Physical feats. Half marathons. Triathlons. Buying a $10,000 bike and riding it up a mountain with 20 mates. Something flashy and public and incongruent with their age.
Which is – obviously – the point.
“The trouble with aging is that the mind remains youthful, while the body shows signs of demise,” notes Neer Korn, social researcher & director of The Korn Group. “So there’s this desire to defy reality and prove you’ve still got it. For men ‘it’ invariably means physical prowess. There are younger people who see them as old, unfit and less able and there are doctors reminding them of weight gain, rising blood pressure and cholesterol. They try to deny all this by doing extreme activities to prove they’re still vital.”
My inbox has noticed. This past year it’s been overflowing with group emails from blokes shilling for coin. And they’re not even Nigerian. Many I know well, others barely and they all want my cash. More specifically, they want me to sponsor them to walk Kokoda or climb Machu Pichu. Sometimes it’s a less physical challenge – just growing a moustache or giving up beer for a month. What all the emails have in common is this: they’re from guys using their bodies and their contacts to raise money while making a statement about who they are and what they can (still) do.
Top Comments
I would love to know where your friend had her botox done, everywhere I go I get charged the earth for very little change.
Whereas what does a donor get for donating to things like breast cancer compared to prostate cancer. Why don't females band together and raise money the proper way. The female way. And raise money to save men from cancer like men do for females even though more men die? It's mind over matter. Females don't mind that men don't matter. That's equality.
A man pushing himself to the limits of his endurance is just some show off type thing. Females would never do that. They are buggered from dropping the kids off at school.
And, of course, an 80 year old grandma who does a tandem sky dive is AbFab. A female wandering around the globe eating and praying and having sex is REALLY good.
It couldn't be like that with men. Like an accountant I know who used to live in Sydney. He always wanted to do a bridge to bay run. With not having to pay all the bills anymore and not having the responsibility for the welfare of dependents like a wife and children, he set about achieving a life goal. He trained for 2 years. He finished the race. Or how silly are men who buy expensive sports cars. They should drive proper economical cars. Who do they think they are. Females don't go out and buy expensive luxury fast cars. It could not be a dream come true and, at least in his senior years, he gets to enjoy the best that motoring can offer. Females don't care about super fantastic engines and aerodynamics and cornering or any of that silly stuff. A car is only for LOOKS. Silly men. What females do is always the best thing to do and whatever men do, even if it's the same thing, deserve derision. THAT's equality.