Passing for older

[redbird]

Sometimes, I take advantage of looking older than I am. So do lots of people.

Most of them want to buy alcohol. I'm getting seats on mass transit.

I'm offered seats fairly often (in both Montreal and New York). I accept them when I feel I need it—for example, lately when my knee has been bothering me. I do my best to decline other times, when I don't: the person offering may also be tired. Sometimes I will say "no, thanks, I'm getting off soon" because that seems to be the smoothest way of declining that offer.

On an afternoon like tonight, I say "Thank you very much." I wouldn't even have been taking the crosstown bus if I was feeling well (it's half a mile to the nearer of the two good subways, maybe three quarters to the further, and by the time I've waited for the bus it doesn't save much time).

I've noticed that while people offer me seats even when I'm feeling fine, or when I am pleasantly tired on my way home from lifting weights, the offers are more consistent when I feel as though I need the seat.

[That userpic is from a couple of years ago, and my hair is whiter from the front than in profile.]

Comments

My age is a little ambiguous from my appearance

[dakiwiboid]

I'm actually too young for senior rates in many places, but not others. Some establishments start offering them at 50, some at 55. Others make you wait until 60 or even more and don't post the policy. Thus, if I see a "senior rate" posted somewhere, I just go ahead and ask for it unless I have a better coupon available or unless it's somewhere I really feel obliged for charity purposes to pay full price. I've only been asked for proof of age once or my AARP card (which can be damned useful) a handful of times.

I'm seriously broke, so I take advantage of discounts where I can get them. Seats on mass transit are good as well. When I rode regularly I used to offer them myself. What ticked me off, though, is when people would load up their seats with luggage and let folks with canes, or pregnant women or older people, or those who are obviously tired or ill stand. I once grabbed a security guard and sent him to the front of the train to handle a family with luggage who were hogging the seats reserved the disabled when there was a woman with a cane standing right there.

It's kind of shameful to be the oldest person in a car and be the one who gets up to offer someone a seat, though.

Re: My age is a little ambiguous from my appearance

[trialia]

I hope this doesn't offend you but, as a young woman with an invisible disability and a mobility aid, I often find that I'm more frequently scoffed at and denied a seat by people much older than I am than by young people. It's sad, since one would think that, like you, older people would understand the need to sit when you're not well better than young ones, but that's what often happens to me. (And a lot of the time not even the young people will let me sit - I wind up standing and clinging onto a pole quite often.)

Shame on them!

[dakiwiboid]

Bad manners, lack of compassion, and the need to bully others all lead to a lot of unkindness and outright cruelty. I'm sorry that so much of it is directed at you.

I have a few invisible problems myself, such as strong sensitivities to perfumes and tobacco. Smoking's still allowed in many places here, and it can make commuting via public transport very uncomfortable. Smokers seem to believe that bus shelters exist merely as places to light cigarettes out of the wind, and although it's forbidden to smoke on light rail platforms, some of them go ahead and do so anyway. Their addictions are clearly more important than anyone around them. Very occasionally I can get away with mentioning an "allergy" (which is all that most people would understand), but most requests for a little clean air to stand in meet with cries of "Bitch!" or worse.