“I Know I’m Dating Myself…”
A semantic tic or self-inflicted ageism?
“I know I’m dating myself, but…” Occasionally, seniors engage in a small act of ageist self-sabotage with this semantic tic before moving on to the point.
What’s with the preamble? It suggests a self-consciousness about our age as if admitting memory of a bygone era is a bad thing, a marker of embarrassment. What’s wrong with “I remember when…”?
Memories are our superpower. We’ve built them over decades of learning and trial and error experience. Memories are the rare earth elements of our wisdom. Painful or joyous memories enrich our conversations, lending our authenticity.
Recalling our past doesn’t invalidate our perspective; quite the contrary, it endows a sense of authority and authenticity of having been there. Why dumb it down with the implied self-doubt that the “I know I’m dating myself, but…” lead-in suggests?
Here’s an example to think about — the gist of it will probably sound familiar:
“I know I’m dating myself, but years ago, there was no air conditioning, and fans were fine.”
I bet most of us are unaware of any self-directed ageist slur in the preamble. But I’m also pretty sure fans weren’t all that fine, vis a vis our climate-controlled lives. As memories can be…
