Why don't I feel like an adult?

The battle between actual age and subjective age

Community spaces are here! Update the app to check out some spaces already created by your fellow Diemers, like Decentering Men, Gossip to get your heart rates up, and Neurodivergent Corner, or request your own!

But first, here’s what else people are talking about on Diem:

1. Ive changed my mind about letting a guy save my nudes in chat 

2. As poly, don’t you feel that telling to others about your relationships is a big energy consuming?   

3. Is it normal to grieve when a close friend gets married?   

4. What do I do now my friend told me she has a crush on me?      

5. My underwear is basically always wet or damp.  

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Writer

Sari Botton

, author of

Oldster Magazine

, asks this question in her weekly questionnaires: Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind?

This question is usually asked of those who are in their 50s or above, and their answers are almost always younger than the age they are. This age, the one they are in their heads, is called their “subjective age,” and a 2006 Danish study found that adults over forty perceive themselves to be an average of 20% younger than they actually are.

I’m not exempt from this from this phenomenon. Whenever I have a brusque interaction with a stranger or a TSA agent is rude to me at an airport, my primal, knee-jerk reaction is the same: I’m 17!!!!!!!! I’m not 17. I haven’t been 17 for fourteen years. But something in my subconscious has gotten stuck there.

There are a few theories as to how we all got stuck at our subjective ages: