Why the secret to feeling young is ditching killjoy friends who make you seem older

When I ran into a friend this week, I suggested that it would be nice to go out and catch up, since we hadn’t seen each other in a while. It was surprisingly easy to find a mutually agreeable date.

The challenge was to agree on a suitable time. Because it turns out that my boyfriend doesn’t want to eat a bite after 8:00 PM.

Not because she’s been bitten by the intermittent fasting bug. Instead, as she explained, eating “late” no longer suited her “aging digestive system.” (FYI, her gut just recently turned 52.)

“I’m sorry, Ange,” she began. “But I just can’t eat at that time of night. You know how it is when we get older…”

Uh no, not really. The irony is that my friend is in good health. Her skin is wrinkle-free, her hair shiny. And she is very slim – although that could also be because she eats her last meal of the day no later than a child’s teatime. She could easily pass for someone in her early 40s.

Yet, like more and more women I know, she is growing older through a self-determined willingness to behave, to put it bluntly, like an old woman.

Why does it bother me? After all, Mother Nature, the most duplicitous of women, reminds us time and again of the aging process: from the expanding menopausal belly to the aching joints.

But I bet that gray hair and wrinkles are much less of a sign of aging than being around women who accelerate the process with their self-sacrificing attitudes.

Take another friend, who is about to turn 50. She refuses to go out to eat, let alone have dinner, if it means she doesn’t have to be home until 9 p.m. “I just like to crawl into bed. Don’t you feel more tired these days? We’re reaching that cozy, hibernation age.”

It’s a ridiculous sentiment. I felt much more exhausted in my 30s, trying to juggle a job as a journalist and broadcaster with raising four children. Now, at 57 and with our brood out of the house, I feel like I’m just getting started.

I love that I can hop on the train from my home in Manchester to take on assignments for broadcasters in London, or take on assignments to write articles that take me even further.

This is my time. Why on earth would I want to go to bed earlier than kids who are still at Brownies or soccer practice?

One of my colleagues accelerates the aging process in a different, but in my opinion equally depressing, way.

She is 52 years old, funny, sharp and great company, but she has decided that ‘at her age’ she no longer needs to pay so much attention to her appearance.

She was one of those people who was enviably – effortlessly – stylish. Her fashion choices resulted in fantastic combinations, such as her finding just the right shade of burnt orange shirt to wear with baggy jeans and stilettos.

But now she’s decided that comfort is more important than chic. So she wears only hideous shoes that look like tissue boxes. (“Who cares that corns aren’t sexy?” she exclaims in a maddening tone.)

Nowadays she often combines dresses and skirts with supportive tights, making her legs look like sausages.

And then there’s the hair, which she rarely does these days. I saw her at a wedding recently and she had it up in a ponytail. As she admired my freshly cut locks, she said, “Oh, I just didn’t feel like sitting under the blow dryer for hours,” before adding that at her age (that phrase again!) “no one would look at her anyway.”

Try telling that to Dame Joan Collins, 91 years old and dazzlingly glamorous.

Or tell me. That night I was dressed up in a teal sequin dress from the River Island sale and I danced until the band played their last chords.

The irony of those who take a self-ageist approach is that it has long been known that women of a certain age begin to feel invisible.

We all know that society can be harsh when it comes to categorizing the female gender.

For example, 2019 research from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found that actresses over 50 are often relegated to supporting roles — or consistently portrayed as grumpy, sloppy, or senile.

Why then should we encourage such a view?

I should point out that it can also be the actions of younger women – mid 30s to mid 40s – that can make us “older women” feel our age too. Especially when we are around people who operate in a tight clique.

A 57-year-old friend often complains about such a dynamic in her wider circle. ‘I always feel like these women are talking to me as an act of charity. They’re younger, thinner, and they’re all so sure of themselves. It makes me feel old.’

For the record, this privileged group is no more than five to ten years younger than her. Furthermore, my friend is successful, smart, has so much life experience and could outshine anyone in terms of humor, intellect or good conversation. It is her defeatism that is depressing – and aging.

This isn’t about ignoring aging. Rather, it’s about rebranding it with a sense of excitement and rediscovery.

Just look at Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate in the US. At 59, she is the youngest candidate to take on 78-year-old Donald Trump.

Or TV presenter Davina McCall, recently photographed in a dazzling ruby-red bikini and matching ankle boots, confirming her refusal to dress or act her age.

Now 56, she says, “It’s like getting a second chance at life, and we’re showing the kids that second chance.”

That’s why I’ve decided to give a wide berth to all the women I know who constantly play songs like ‘not my age’, ‘I’m too old for this’ or ‘I’d rather stay home and have a cup of tea’.

They make me want to run a mile, or at least take a brisk walk.

Time doesn’t wait for a woman in menopause. So why jump-start it? If you want to eat at 5pm, be in bed a few hours later, and donate your heels to a museum, that’s your choice.

But as long as I have breath and there are late reservations at restaurants, it will never be mine.