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How do you get on with old people?

Leo

Leo

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I think I get on OK with oldies, and most old dears are especially nice to me. Sometimes old guys can be a bit crabby, but if you remain respectful they usually chill. I find old people love talking about their lives, and when they were young, and you learn some very interesting stuff. How about everyone here - how do you get on? :)
 
I love old people. I've never understood why the elderly are sometimes so undervalued by society. They should be cherished for their wisdom and experience just as much as young people are for their energy and potential.
 
Leo said:
I think I get on OK with oldies, and most old dears are especially nice to me. Sometimes old guys can be a bit crabby, but if you remain respectful they usually chill. I find old people love talking about their lives, and when they were young, and you learn some very interesting stuff. How about everyone here - how do you get on? :)
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Basically, I treat old people how they treat me. If one is nice and considerate to me, I'm nice and considerate to them. If one is crabby and mean to me then I'm crabby and mean to them.
 
Leo said:
I think I get on OK with oldies, and most old dears are especially nice to me. Sometimes old guys can be a bit crabby, but if you remain respectful they usually chill. I find old people love talking about their lives, and when they were young, and you learn some very interesting stuff. How about everyone here - how do you get on? :)
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How do you get along with women? Or men? Or whites? Or blacks? Or the Italians? How do you get along with teenagers? Or college students? How about old college students? Or the middle aged?

It depends on the woman, man, white, black, Italian, teenager, or college student. And, it depends on you.

How old is "an oldie" or an "old dear"? How sick/healthy, mobile/immobile, educated/uneducated, happy/grumpy are they/you? Their perspective is unique. How much love do they have in their hearts - how much wisdom in their heads? Every awesome person in the world is eventually "an oldie" or dead. Every grotesque person in the world is eventually "an oldie" or dead.

I'm hoping one day I'll be an oldie. I hope to get along with myself fine. I get along with people of every age now, and I hope it will be the same then.
 
Leo said:
I think I get on OK with oldies, and most old dears are especially nice to me. Sometimes old guys can be a bit crabby, but if you remain respectful they usually chill. I find old people love talking about their lives, and when they were young, and you learn some very interesting stuff. How about everyone here - how do you get on? :)
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I miss my parents terribly.

I liked to discuss any major decisions with my Dad before making an irrevocable committment. He was old and experienced and wise, he'd seen a lot in life and understood human nature very well. Whether I took his advice or not, I always wanted to get his perspective on a question before making my own decision.

It'd be nice if I still had an older man like that I could talk to. Unfortunately I don't.

My Mom, besides being awesome in innumerable other ways, was a wealth of information on "how things were done in the old days". She grown up as a Depression-era farmgirl and was no stranger to hard work. One of the facinating things about her anecdotes from the 1930's and 40's was that while things have changed, there is so much that is really the same. That is, the details have changed in society but human nature remains human nature. She also knew about all the old movie stars and starlets and singers of the era, and I have an appreciation for classic cinema, jazz and blues and the big-band era that she could feed.

Frankly I wish there were more old people in my life right now. Maybe I should do something about that.
 
I get along with my peers well enough.



.......and thank you for asking.
 
I don't know many old people. I am only 73 myself, and most in my age group are pretty easy to get along with.
 
What do you consider old? At any rate our elder population are our treasures of society. Without them we would not have any identity as a society.

I do find your question odd though, elderly people are just people why would younger people not get along with other people just because of their age? None of us are the same age.
 
I get along with everyone, old or young. The only old man I have a problem with is the one that keeps looking back at me whenever I look in a mirror. Where did he come from, anyway?
 
Freedom From al said:
What do you consider old? At any rate our elder population are our treasures of society. Without them we would not have any identity as a society.

I do find your question odd though, elderly people are just people why would younger people not get along with other people just because of their age? None of us are the same age.
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I don't think my question is odd, it is just a conversational one. All people of different generations don't always get on with each other, and there seems to be a societal bias against teens, especially males. I often hear derogatory and very general remarks about teens. I have not had any real problems myself, but I have had some pretty crabby responses when I was younger, and I noticed that a number of young people avoid the older generations.

I have been very fortunate in that I had a close friend who was a very elderly lady (like in her eighties when she died three years ago) and she was like another gran to me. She taught me loads of stuff about literature and music and art, and she was great fun to be with. So I know what you are saying is true. But I am just curious about other people's experiences with people of different generations.
 
Leo said:
I don't think my question is odd, it is just a conversational one. All people of different generations don't always get on with each other, and there seems to be a societal bias against teens, especially males. I often hear derogatory and very general remarks about teens. I have not had any real problems myself, but I have had some pretty crabby responses when I was younger, and I noticed that a number of young people avoid the older generations.

I have been very fortunate in that I had a close friend who was a very elderly lady (like in her eighties when she died three years ago) and she was like another gran to me. She taught me loads of stuff about literature and music and art, and she was great fun to be with. So I know what you are saying is true. But I am just curious about other people's experiences with people of different generations.
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I do agree that many older people think that new generations "are getting worse". It goes along with the belief that things were better at some earlier period. Yet when one really looks at that period things were no better than now and in most cases worse. The things are getting worse meme comes from the doomsday philosophies promoted by many different religions.

Like you I have been fortunate to have known elderly people throughout my life (Im 43). It has always fascinated me to hear about history from people that lived through it. I have a Grandpa that died the same year that I was born, yet I know a lot about him from his friends. I owe a lot of my education to the numerous older friends that I have had.

Many younger people avoid older people because they are afraid of growing old themselves. But most people grow out of that at some point.
 
stay off my lawn, pull your pants up, and don't say stupid ****.... that's the recipe for youngins' and me to get along :lol:
 
I've been around elderly folks most of all my life. Church as a kid, then work and other organizations and have always gotten on well with them. Probably owing to my natural curiosity and because I am a "people person", so I get along with most people of every age in any case. I like to hear about peoples' lives and older folks have loads to tell. I've learned first hand about the depression, WWII (from several perspectives), the space race and innumerable other "slices of life".

Yes, there are cranky older people, but I know a fair number of cranky "younger" people too.
 
Leo said:
I think I get on OK with oldies, and most old dears are especially nice to me. Sometimes old guys can be a bit crabby, but if you remain respectful they usually chill. I find old people love talking about their lives, and when they were young, and you learn some very interesting stuff. How about everyone here - how do you get on? :)
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Leo said:
I don't think my question is odd, it is just a conversational one. All people of different generations don't always get on with each other, and there seems to be a societal bias against teens, especially males. I often hear derogatory and very general remarks about teens. I have not had any real problems myself, but I have had some pretty crabby responses when I was younger, and I noticed that a number of young people avoid the older generations.

I have been very fortunate in that I had a close friend who was a very elderly lady (like in her eighties when she died three years ago) and she was like another gran to me. She taught me loads of stuff about literature and music and art, and she was great fun to be with. So I know what you are saying is true. But I am just curious about other people's experiences with people of different generations.
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I'm sorry. The assumptions I made about your initial post may not have been accurate. It sounded like you were lumping people into one judgemental pot because of their age, and I thought that was immature. "I get along with oldies" as in all oldies - "most old dears are especially nice to me" condescending and, again, lumping together - the rest puts all older folks together in a way that gave me the impression that you'd never known someone over 40, let alone 70, 80, 90 or 100.

Teenagers suffer social bias because we've all been teenagers. I know I was trouble when I was a teenager. And, I know how stupid I was when I was a teenager. If I knew then what I know now, I'd probably have been even more trouble in some ways - but, I would've been a lot harder to deal with. Just knowing how much of an idiot I was would've probably helped.
 
pretty well. i respect them, and i enjoy their stories and wisdom. we are often not on the same page politically, but sometimes we are. it doesn't matter; there is a lot to life that isn't political.
 
Leo said:
I think I get on OK with oldies, and most old dears are especially nice to me. Sometimes old guys can be a bit crabby, but if you remain respectful they usually chill. I find old people love talking about their lives, and when they were young, and you learn some very interesting stuff. How about everyone here - how do you get on? :)
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"Respect your elders" was something I grew up with and was taught to employ. I haven't changed.
 
I have noticed that kids are getting older and older. They're about < 25 or so these days.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
I have noticed that kids are getting older and older. They're about < 25 or so these days.
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Yeah I noticed that lately. :)

I was referring to someone, whose name escaped me just then, as "that boy I let deer hunt on my land"... when it occurred to me that "that boy" was probably pushing 30. :doh
 
Most old people creep me out. On the other hand, I have pretty much no reason or opportunity to spend any time with anyone old enough to be retired. I get along with them just fine, but usually have little to no interest in interacting with them.
 
Dittohead not! said:
I get along with everyone, old or young. The only old man I have a problem with is the one that keeps looking back at me whenever I look in a mirror. Where did he come from, anyway?
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Bill Cosby had a great line abourt walking down a sidewalk and feeling great. Then he looked over at his shadow on the ground and it was a shadow of an old man walking. Where in the heck did he come from.
 
Aderleth said:
Most old people creep me out. On the other hand, I have pretty much no reason or opportunity to spend any time with anyone old enough to be retired. I get along with them just fine, but usually have little to no interest in interacting with them.
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May I ask why that is?
 
I sometimes feel uncomfortable around older people because usually they cannot hear what I'm saying unless I raise my voice. I have a soft voice (for the most part) so it's hard for some people to hear me. However, I have sat and listened to older people talk about what the Depression and the wars were like. I think their stories are fascinating.
 
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