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.