Status Anxiety: Getting closer to old age

As I get older I’ve begun to obsessively monitor myself for evidence of mental deterioration. For instance, I cannot watch Match of the Day without reciting the names of as many Premier League goalkeepers as I can remember. I do it so often it has become a Pavlovian response. Another test is trying to remember every phone number I’ve ever had, starting with the first.

I wouldn’t recommend either as a means of reassurance. The satisfaction I feel on being able to remember a particular name or number is easily outweighed by the waves of anxiety when I can’t. I must have googled ‘Early Onset Alzheimer’s’ more often than my own name.

However, not all the signs of encroaching decrepitude are to be regretted. Over the past couple of years I’ve noticed a transformation in my attitude towards the elderly. Like Philip Larkin, I used to think of them as old fools, with their mouths hanging open and drooling, always behaving as if they’re crippled or tight. But not any more. These days, whenever I see an old lady counting out her change in Morrisons or an old boy inching his way up East Acton Lane I feel a surge of compassion. ‘That’ll be me in 30 years,’ I think.

It’s as if an entire segment of the population has suddenly become visible. It’s not that I didn’t notice old people before, more that I didn’t give them a second thought. I just lumped them all together in one big mass. I didn’t think of them as distinct individuals, not like me. They were members of another species — Little Grey Men from the Planet Scrotum.

Most young people share this prejudice to a greater or lesser extent and one of the benefits of getting older is that you’re forced to confront it.