Millennial men grew up thinking we could stop worrying about our health and looks by retirement. Something’s changed.
Everyone talks about this one man at a gym I regularly go to in Manhattan. Judging by his face and skin, I think he must be about 60, but he has Tarzan muscles and the kind of six-pack where you can see veins bulging from his lower abdomen. More than once, I’ve heard a friend whisper something like, “Wow, I really I hope I look as good as he does at that age.”
And every time, I look over at those bouldery biceps and think, “My God, I DON’T.” When I’m 60, I want to rest. Sure, I’m possessed by the exercise demons now, but as I get closer to retirement, I don’t want to be drilling myself to death at Barry’s Bootcamp. I don’t want to worry about what I eat. I want to be out of that game completely. Like Galadriel in Lord of the Rings, I want to diminish and recede into the west. After all, isn’t the promise of nearing retirement age that we finally get off the hamster wheel of hustling and competition — and transition to a new, more relaxed phase of life? We were promised margaritas, not counting macros.
Instead, we’re going to have to stay hot. For, like, several more decades.
I just turned 45, which puts me at the top end of the millennial cohort — a geriatric millennial, we are artfully called. My eyesight is going, but I certainly don’t feel middle-aged. I think back with guilt to when my mom turned 40 and I got her a card congratulating her on being “over the hill” — i.e., halfway to death. It had gravestones on it.
“Midlife has genuinely shifted,” says Dr. Ryan Neinstein, a much sought-after plastic surgeon in Manhattan. “When our parents were 50, culturally, that was closer to the beginning of old age. Now my patients in their 50s are training for triathlons, starting companies, dating after divorce, raising young kids.”
Americans have become obsessed with longevity, extending not just our lifespan but also our “healthspan” — how long we live healthfully and happily. As a result, what middle age looks like has shifted too, thanks to everything from skincare to surgery. If we feel young and healthy on the inside, why wouldn’t we want to look that way on the outside? Now we’re all about extending our “hotspan.”
This perspective shift is more substantial for aging men, upon whom pop culture and society have traditionally set lower expectations of health and appearance. (This was explained most brilliantly, and unprintably, in an unforgettable Inside Amy Schumer sketch from 2015.) Millions now tune into “manosphere” podcasts extolling the importance — nay, necessity — of keeping up one’s vitality. And it’s about time: Women, of course, have felt pressure to stay hot forever since … forever.
Read the Full story: There Has Never Been So Much Pressure for Men to Look Good at 60 (Bloomberg)
