For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 16, 2023

it’s not easy getting any younger

Consider the alternative…

Well, denial, maybe. Or perhaps acceptance and nonchalance.

Wait til you hit 85, talk about denial! Wasn’t a day to celebrate, I’ll tell you.

It was in my late 50’s when I looked i the mirror and saw an old man looking back instead of a middle aged one. When did THAT guy sneak in here?

My sister had a hard time with thirty. I was a bit confused as she was married with three kids so I wasn’t sure why that bothered her. I have never cared about mu age even though I have never been married or had kids.

Only a man can look into the mirror, see recessive baldness, a beer gut, and still think he’s the sexiest thing on the planet..

Oh, I am NOT in denial!

Men have a mental case of “rose-coloured glasses” – they only see what they want to see.

You are not old until you die. I am 66 years.

My mother cried all day when she turned 30. I thought I would too but 30 didn’t bother me. 40 did. I was depressed all day when I turned 40. The year before I turned 50 I had a friend who was 9 months older than me say how great it was to be a half century old. So I decided to take the same attitude. With 60 I was “meh. Whatever!” In a few weeks I turn 64 and I keep hearing the Beatles song lol!

We see change as we age and accept it, because we can delay it and enjoy it more by staying fit, but the end is unavoidable. Enjoy every day for its’ own beautiful moments, and know that you are tough enough to handle any difficulty. When my time comes, my only regret is that there will still be so many wonderful things I still haven’t experienced. Death isn’t something to fear, but I still intend to fight it off until I’m in my 90’s at least. It ‘s still fun in my upper 70’s, and I hope to be a contender for a new world record.

It’s because we men don’t have a deluge of magazines and ads telling us we need to fix everything about ourselves. Anybody would end up messed up living surrounded by that kind of thing.

I will be 66 soon. My son just turned 40. I’d kill to be 40…or 45 again. Heck, I’ll take 50!

I am not in denial. Most men are just happy to make it to the next year. I know where I am in my life. John is right – it doesn’t faze us. We don’t get in uproar over age and weight like women do. It’s called being in the moment.

As a man I shouldn’t tell you our secret but here goes anyway. Men have a fantastic anti-aging moisturizing skin cleanser that REALLY works wonders!

It isn’t a stronger sense of denial, it’s a stronger sense of reality.

There is a lot of freedom in not having much to lose in the “looks” department, and total freedom in not caring. Freedom beats beauty any day.

Men aren’t raised to believe that their looks are everything. However, that doesn’t stop us from looking at younger women and thinking ,“If only”.

Some of us don’t care about looks, we care about what we used to be able to do that we cannot do now.

So she looked in the mirror and couldn’t even kind of …

… recognize her own mother?

What do men have that women don’t?

A sense of self-worth that is far less wrapped up in how they look and based far more on what they can do, what they accomplish.

@Last Rose Of Summer- Well, think about this. Look at all these rappers, especially Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls that were killed in their prime and didn’t even live to see 30! Tupac was 25 and Biggie was 24. Something to think about. But Tupac more than once predicted his own demise by saying that he wasn’t going to live to be an old man.

Less narcissism?

Getting old beats the alternative.

My husband was deeply traumatized on his 30th birthday. I had to tell everyone we knew not to send him anything. After that he was fine. I passed 30, 40, 50, 55…I hit 58 and still haven’t hit my traumatic birthday yet, and I’m kind of looking forward to 60.

I wasn’t bothered by getting into my 40s. Some of it is that my career has long been hampered by looking younger than I am; finally looking closer to my age means people have stopped thinking I’m a newbie and started thinking I might know what I"m talking about, and that’s nice. ;-) I feel like I’ve earned my gray hairs, even if they don’t reach very far down my braid yet.

perhaps a stronger sense of acceptance

A girlfriend on the side.

In the service – didn’t expect to live past 40 – if I made it that long – that was 32 years ago when I celebrated my 40th and quit thinking about remaining time – enjoy each day as a new beginning and don’t get hung up on time – nobody gets out and when the clock stops, we’re not going to be able to complain about it…

Men have the capacity to look in a mirror and shave without seeing all the defects, age spots and other signs of our impending doom. If we do notice anything we tell ourselves there is not a dang thing we can do about it and move on. Women on the other hand try to plaster enough colored mud on their faces to try and hide the fact that they are getting older. To me my wife looks far better when she is not wearing all that makeup because I get to see her and not an anime cartoon.

I paid good money for my immortality! If it doesn’t work, someone will have Hell to pay…

Men also don’t have the societal “rules” that tell women they must always look young

A sense of mortality crept in when I turned 35.

As I get older, I have fewer reasons to celebrate.

Men age like wine. Women age like milk.

The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Time sure does fly. Seemed like only yesterday Elly took her first stagecoach ride out of town to visit relatives.

GRAVITY…is the enemy !

When you see people on a regular basis you don’t notice the aging. When you haven’t seen a celebrity in a long time, they can look really old…

I’m proud of the grey in my beard. I earned everyone of those grey hairs, some of them the hard way.

To be fair, I have seen the early comic strips and Elly really does not look the same. However, aging affected her as a cartoon character in a different way that it does regular humans. Her nose changed, her jawline changed, and her eyes are no longer dots.

You do the best you can with what you have and go on with life. Make the best out of it.

Older men always think they are attractive to young women(Why?)

Older women think they are no longer attractive to young men.

It’s a long,long time from May to September….

And the days grow short until you reach December

And the days dwindle down to a precious few…..

How does she breathe with that tight belt?

This reminds me of a co-worker who acted so forlorn and depressed for weeks. I was new there and didn’t want to cause further upset. I finally asked the least affected co-worker what was wrong with him. He was dreading his 30th birthday! What a buffoon!!

If only there is a way to revert all women to how they looked at 20 and keep them there, whoever invents that will be a multitrillionaire. Women will want it and men will want it for their women.

Tomorrow is my 76th, I’m looking forward to my 77th.

It’s all down hill after 75!

Statistically, the character who has the shortest life expectancy is Lawrence.

I’m almost 63, just a week and a day, and as long as I don’t scare little kids when I’m walking down the grocery aisle I’m not to worried.

Denial is a powerful weapon.

NO. Our tastes in women evolve. We can always appreciate a young attractive woman. However,as we age, so does our tastes in women.There are so many beautiful women in every age group. Many men even appreciate the older women more because of their maturity and experience. So if your husband pays you a compliment and says that you are beautiful, accept it and let him know that he has good taste and maybe even tastes good, as a kisser….

Beets the heck out of birthdays stopping at 13 or 45!

Men aren’t conditioned to worry about signs of aging, like women are. To me my 71 year old wife is as beautiful as she was at 18. I see her heart and soul, as well as her face.

Oldsters still occasionally call me “young man”, but teenagers know better. I got my senior (55+) discount at the grocery store yesterday, no questions asked.

Sigh.

Cultural approval.

Nah, most of us just don’t care about age until it hits us physically. Sure we see the reflection in the mirror, but never let that affect us.

If this strip was realistic, the ones who would die early would have been Phil, Anne, Steve, and Lawrence.