Why do most Eldergays on here live in the past?

why are you such a cunt?

[quote]t's not the 1970s anymore

Wait,,,WHAT?

Because THIS >

OP's favorite fashion era >

Wake me when the '80s arrive.

Little did they know.

Gap In-Store Playlists live forever!

70s music is fucking amazing.

Because those were the days of our lives when we were young and 2hot2bbelieved.

Remember twink as you pass by, As I am now so you will be. Prepare to age and follow me.

I live in the present- have high expectations for the future and treasure my memories of the past. And if you don't like it- fuck off.

Yeah, why live in the past when the present and future seem so promising.

R3 loved this number. Full wall of sound and constant drivinbg beat!

I used to come to America from England in the 70s as a teen and it was a really fun time there...I have the clear perspective of an outsider.

Why does the younger generation keep foisting tired ass losers like Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber on us, then claiming they're "artists?"

Because the Present mostly sucks.

....

R7 You fucking nut.

DL wouldn’t be what it is without the fabulous eldergays, bitch.

I'm an eldergay luddite. I can't believe kids come to this site. Why aren't they in virtual 3d Instagram K Pop Hole toc?

Let's talk about Company.

Memories!

Misty water colored memories!

Seriously bitch OP. Just remember....beauty (and hubris) fades, but dumb (that’s you honey) is forever.

I hated the 1970's.

Well you probably hate everything, doll.

It seems almost all people develop an [italic]”in MY day” [/italic]defensiveness as they age.

Most people live in the past (or the future) to an extent. It’s safer looking backwards, because you know how things went... or in an imaginary future, where possibilities are endless.

It’s a greater challenge to live purely in the moment, because that’s when you’re most vulnerable. But that’s what therapy is for.

You know what is really tragic, complaining about how other people live their lives. Do you think any one is going to change their behavior because YOU don't approve?

R10 and R11 - pray enlighten us geriatric homos of 40 and over what exactly is so exciting about this plague we are living through. Or about a future when a vaccine whose long-term side effects is the only alternative to a potentially debilitating or deadly disease.

Thank God I remember the 1990's, the aughts, the years before 2016 and sorry if you don't.

Past a certain point, the road behind us becomes a lot longer than the road ahead. That's just a fact of life. Many of us have lived lives of greater experiences/significance than any of the spate of millennial trolls on this board will ever achieve. There's no reason not to celebrate and share it.

Why are you intimidated by our lives, OP? Is it the emptiness of your own that triggers you? ;)

The Aspie Pop Cataloguer/Copycat Thread Thief has an anti-social mental condition and no friends.

So he had to come on DL and drop the names of artists who ARE popular with others in order to trap and milk people into conversations as a substitute for human relationships IRL.

I usually ignore him now.

Jokes on you, OP, cause I’m living in the ‘60s!

Frankly, this place would be pretty boring if it weren't for the eldergay eccentricities we see here on the regular.

If I wanted something like r/gaybros, I'd just go there.

Wait, there's someone here who wants to live in the PRESENT? In 2020?

The 70s are very caricatured by the younger generations. It wasn't nearly as garish and kitsch as people think. Sure some things were, but a lot of people had a cooler style.

R11: LMAO. Clever

I was a toddler when the 70's ended. My earliest memories are of the 80's.

I only care about the 90's!

Because we HAVE a past, sweetie.

I’m living in the 70s because I missed it the first time.

OP, it’s not living in the past; it’s sharing memories and perspectives. It’s our social history and it’s fascinating.

i haven't noticed that many 70s threads lately - actually, any.

I watched "The Fury" (1978) the other night and it was like a time capsule of the 70's.

Millennials are secretly envious of older people and among women, it is especially true. There is a fat fag hag who is also a green-haired SJW who claims to be "bisexual", although she leaped at the chance to go to Holland at the prospect of marrying a wealthy older Dutch man. She is a bully and tags along with the twinks at work who she also backstab. The fact is, she HATES my roommate for no reason at all except that she is over 40, slim, has actual talent and lived through the LA riots (you can't make this stuff up). She reports even those who say that they would like to cut carbs for their own sugar levels for "potentially triggering anorexics". She calls the movement LGBTQA and Latinas "Latinx", although she has never seen a Hispanic or lived among non-whites and claims to understand the struggle.

I'm in my early 30's and I still go back to the music of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. I like the sound and the passion.

When the Way Back Machine is finally developed the 70's will be the first stop

Eldergays live in the past as much as millennials & gen z live in pararealities, where they've rewritten much of the past to suit their own narratives.

You know why OP

Many DLers are single, and even those who are partnered don't seem to have children. They have time to dwell on the past and in DL they've found many kindred spirits, other Eldergays who are able to recite 50 year old sitcoms line-for-line. These are likely the only other people they know who they can reminisce with about times gone by.

Dwelling on the past here also keeps them feeling young and relevant as it reminds them of the days when the world still seemed wide open.

I suspect most of the Eldergays on here don't spend all of their time IRL reminiscing about 1970s TV shows or department stores that closed decades ago or fast food chains their families ate at that no longer exist.

I find many of these threads fascinating as they provide a real window into the lives of middle class Americans during the midcentury Pax Americana period.

I masturbated to 70's porn the other day.

DL is the online equivalent of the solarium at a gay retirement community. Go jump in the pool, OP.

OP, like you [italic]won't[/italic] be reminiscing about the 2010s or '20s or whichever of the dreadful decades you came of age in.

On Reddit, I've already seen kiddies reminisce about the 2000s (!) -- didn't even know that was a thing yet.

I know plenty of older people (my own parents included) who are not stuck in the past. I don't know whether it's that fact that many DLers don't have kids and/or aren't close with their extended families, but it's everything from the fixation on sitcoms of the 70s and 80s to music and fashion of that era to "I was in San Diego is 1984 and it was like this and I'm not even going to consider that it may have changed some in the intervening 36 years" posts.

Not too hard to figure out though--the 80s were happy times for many DLers, they were young, good looking and finally out. Because nothing changed in their lives, the last 30-40 years seem to have been mostly stasis.

My high school/college years were the 1990s and I don't really live in that decade. I am very much in the present, as are all of my peers. Sure, we'll talk about "the old days" occasionally but we're all very much citizens of the present day. It is peculiar that so many DLers are not only obsessed with the 70s and 80s, but how out of touch they are with today's world and culture. My older straight relatives in small towns are more in the present day than many DL oldsters, which really surprises me.

The threads about paying cash, cursive handwriting, complete unfamiliarity with contemporary culture, the ignorance of the most basic tech available today etc. It's kind of mind-blowing.

[quote]I suspect most of the Eldergays on here don't spend all of their time IRL reminiscing about 1970s TV shows or department stores that closed decades ago or fast food chains their families ate at that no longer exist.

Think again!

How VERY dare you, OP!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pour myself a crème de menthe and light a More and commune with my Pet Rock.

[quote] I was a toddler when the 70's ended.

[quote]—Another Middlegay

Oh, Honey, are you sitting down? I’ve got some news for you. You’re no longer “Middlegay.”

Especially in the gay world.

I'm in my forties and the one thing that makes me feel old is when I see some guy in his twenties who I think is cute, and then I remember I'm old enough to be his father and he would likely have no interest in me. But it doesn't seem like that long ago when I was that age. It's like "shit, that went by fast!"

While I agree with everything you wrote R47 and R48, this one does drive me crazy:

[quote] "I was in San Diego is 1984 and it was like this and I'm not even going to consider that it may have changed some in the intervening 36 years" posts.

And yes, my parents and relatives and coworkers are nowhere near as obsessed with the past, but again, I suspect that is because they have children and grandchildren to connect them to the present and the future.

There was actual chic in the 70's: the fashions of St. Laurent, Halston and a young Calvin Klein. Some interior design trends of the 70's are circling back like bentwood, caned pieces and Breuer chairs. It wasn't all horrible.

[quote]Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pour myself a crème de menthe and light a More

Set the teakettle and make mine a Suisse Mocha. I’m out of Tarytons, I’ll be back before the water boils.

Because the '70's were awesome....sex anywhere and everywhere, great dancing, hot men, no trannies.

I remember R48, there was a thread not that long ago about self-driving cars and they were all so wigged out by them, it was like listening to Sidney Powell

Self driving horseless carriages? Are you crazy or something?! There’ll be CARNAGE!!

Exhibit A and B at r54 and r56.

Well, it's because we're old, sonny, and remember a a lot more than you do. It's not rocket science, but maybe it is for you.

Because that's the way of the world.

[quote]there was a thread not that long ago about self-driving cars and they were all so wigged out by them, it was like listening to Sidney Powell

Hell, paying with a Smartphone is unbelievable to them.

So is using the self-checkout at the grocery store. That one amuses me a great deal.

Once you've dialed a phone number using a pencil, there is no room for technological advances.

We just had a thread about Smartphones, self checkouts and how paying in cash is prehistoric and there was lots of flipping out and foaming at the mouth. I couldn't believe it. My seventysomething uncles use the self checkout and never pay in cash anymore. It's like these DLers live in caves and haven't seen the outside world in ages.

"I can't believe cursive handwriting isn't taught in schools these days! It is the end of civilization!"

[quote]department stores that closed decades ago

Where Mother and Grandmother took them for lunch after their weekly enemas.

Was it this one, R65? If not, please point me in the direction of the right thread, because those kinds of discussions fascinate me (in a good way).

^^yes

You are doomed to repeat that which you critique.

Keeping up with tech is something that we're trained to do, and actually enjoy doing r70. I think we'll be fine. We have to do it in our jobs on a constant basis anyway.

[quote] complete unfamiliarity with contemporary culture

Yes how tragic that so many clueless eldergays are missing out on TikTok, Ratched, “Wet Ass Pussy”, and K-Pop

r72 of course that would be your immediate go-to for contemporary culture.

As a 57 year old who looks back to the past with great nostalgia, I'm convinced that the day to day living wasn't exactly perfect, but when I hear a song or revisit a movie I saw when it came out, I get very "Mary" tingles.

There was a certain style that you'd have to be there to understand that feeling but some younger people find it thrilling to discover. I was a teenager when we had movies like "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease", and back then, it seemed like going to the movies was a real event period going to the theater or to a concert was an even bigger thrill.

I look forward to the future, and have come to realize that while we do not have a perfect world now and never will, I can on occasion take that magical mystery ride back to the past and cherish what it means to me now.

I'm neutral on tech and I wouldn't be caught dead on TikTok.

Please allow me to explain. We used to call it "fun". You ride around town smoking dope and drinking some beers. You cruise to Mineshaft or pornshop and bust a nut or two. Smoke some more dope and head out to the bar with your friends. But, sadly we are all nice and "safe" now. Maybe it will come back someday.

[quote] Hell, paying with a Smartphone is unbelievable to them.

You can’t pay with a smartphone, silly. You can only talk and play that game with the boxes coming down.

Now we know you’re teasing us.

When the elders reminisce it's all sex sex and more sex. Having wild promiscuous sex just isn't as important with younger generations of gay men. I'm sure the 70s were fun and all but there is a lot of shallowness to it, and a lack of interests outside of getting laid all the time.

[quote]r56 The '70's were awesome....sex anywhere and everywhere, great dancing, hot men, no trannies.

You know what? [italic]Fuck you!

Ah, the arrogance of youth. We’ve all been there.

[quote] Having wild promiscuous sex just isn't as important with younger generations of gay men.

Whoa there, buddy. That statement doesn't speak for a lot of us!

Most of the "youths" on here are over 40.

R82, that statement describes Palm Springs.

I maybe agree with the promiscuous sex being too all consuming. But I don’t understand why clubs disappeared. Many were even alcohol free. But people used to love to dance in public. I find it bizarre gay men don’t dance anymore. Maybe we should have focused less on promiscuous sex - but I’ll never regret all the dancing. Deeply spiritually satisfying and a full use of life and mind.

The 1970s, I wasn't even born yet, therefore I cannot reminisce about anything from that era.

OP = Madonna, hip and still with it

Why did you post a picture of an Asian lady and say she’s Madonna?

R84 = John Travolta

Living in the past? Who wouldn't prefer it? This nonsense today is total bullshit.

Maybe no smartphones but we could remember a million phone numbers and these days people don't even know their own numbers.

He's been trying it R24, for several days now, in fact.I'm not on much but every time I am, there's at least one hissy fit about "eldergays living in the past" happening. Sometimes it's within a thread, sometimes it's a whole thread by itself.

If OP is the guy I saw yesterday, he's also wallowing in the past on topics HE likes, but then starting threads like this.

R86 omfg. Damn. Every Madonna pic I see on DL nowadays gives me short-term PTSD.

[quote] maybe agree with the promiscuous sex being too all consuming. But I don’t understand why clubs disappeared.

In NYC it became too expensive, as the rents became insane. Also, the areas where the clubs were located were rapidly gentrifying and the new residents complained non-stop about noise and rowdiness.

If you visit enough old people you begin to see that some of their homes are frozen in time, whether 5 years ago or sometimes 50 in those true time capsule houses of the 1970s. There came a time when, whether for financial reasons or failing eyesight or immobility or some sequence of events to make them just not care, they stopped keeping up, sometimes just with fashions and design trends, and sometimes with life itself. They just stopped being part of the present and started saying no, no, no, no to every small, accretive change of time. Open the desk drawer and there are 40-some AOL free trial CDs, still in their plastic shrinkwrap, right there in the front, next to long dessicated poppers bottles, a pair of scratched Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, a fine dust of decomposed tobacco from the thousands of packs of Benson & Hedges 100s that were stored there over the years, and, at the very back of the drawer, any long abandoned crumb of hope that the future holds anything good.

It's not the nostalgia or the fond or bittersweet recollections that are objectionable, not at all. What's wrong is when you see someone so stubbornly removed from life, lost in the good old days of looking forward to his special, thick fall edition of the TV Guide with all the new and retiring series - from all three networks! - spotlighted...certain that he had lived through the sunset of a Golden Age, no fucking idea of and no interest in the Golden Ages that would follow the demise of Hart to Hart.

If it's gay curmudgeons you seek, look no further, there's no better place and the quality is high and they are funny and enlightening and sometimes poignant. But goddamn, it's just sad to see people for whom time stopped on that weekend when they could have had their pick of any man at the Parliament House, and did. To see someone's world shrink to a tiny ball the day that LA Law, or Laverne & Fucking Shirley, FFS, some ridiculously bad TV series died is sad. It's people who don't have two or even one foot or a toe dipped into the pool of the present, and deeply embittered by the very idea that life *didn't* stop in 1982 or 1994 that amaze and scare.

[quote]If you visit enough old people you begin to see that some of their homes are frozen in time, whether 5 years ago or sometimes 50 in those true time capsule houses of the 1970s.

My great aunt and great uncle had what my relatives and I called "The 1930s House." Literally, nothing had been touched since they moved in during the 1930s and it looked the same until they both died until the late 1990s. They even had one of those big wooden radios in their living room. They had a tv, toaster oven and microwave but I can't recall anything else that was modern. It was kind of cool, in a way.

And they didn't keep their house as a time capsule because they couldn't afford to update. They had plenty of $$$ they were just cheap and miserly AF.

[quote]. Some interior design trends of the 70's are circling back like bentwood, caned pieces and Breuer chairs. It wasn't all horrible.

I had a set of the Breuer Cesca chairs until a friend from the younger generation destroyed the seat on one by accidentally putting his knee through it. I miss those chairs, which I replaced with some reupholstered Emeco Navy chairs (indestructible).

But I have never said “circle back” except in quotes to make fun of whoever I’m quoting.

And yes, what contemporary culture?

R68 Re the thread about forcing businesses to accept cash. The proponents of this are not doing it for old folks who don't know how to use debit cards, etc.

These laws address disparity in availability and affordability of banks in poor /minority neighborhoods, and in particular immigrants who lack the ability to provide certain types of ID necessary to open a bank account.

Absolutely nothing to do with elderly Luddites.

r96 it does have to do with elderly Luddites, among others. Have you ever been stuck in line behind an old person? JFC.

The '70s were great in many ways. Weed was good and cheap. Think 5 bucks for a nickel bag. Guys didn't shave their pubs off. Big porn 'staches were the rage. So too were basic denim jeans that hugged the guys ass. In fact, Levi jeans were made with heavy weight denim. Tuition at a private college might have been $35 a credit. Gas was cheap, so were rents. You could afford to live and plan to do stuff with your life and dream. The afterglow of the '60s hippie movement was wonderful In many ways things seemed so down-to-earth, at least in the first half of the decade. Oh, and who could forget the music? Oh, even Disco sound good compared to the stuff played now.

Discussing and enjoying one's gift of experience and hindsight is hardly living in the past.

We are all seeking to place our existence in some kind of context every day of our lives, and incorporating past experience in today's prism is doing just that.

I bet you're really exhausting in person too.

This thread is some idiot troll farm minion thread with scripted arguments. The minions are trying to create some conflict that doesn't exist except in their script.

It's bored heteros that either eat onion soup in Siberia or drink Mountain Dew by the gallon in WV. They have no skills and no future.

r100 I can assure you I'm not a paid troll.

I come here so I can talk about mothers China… And trade recipes… And discuss what prep schools I went to

Imagine a time without any Kardashians or orange stains in the Oval Office. The most dramatic thing that's gonna happen in DC is a small break-in and a President that gets so spooked about a potential impeachment that he outright resigns before that can happen. And through it all, you can always just get up and do the hustle.

That's IT, OP! I've had it.

I'm canceling your luncheon at Le Train Bleu!

Reminiscing about the past is actually a sign of a healthy mind. Also, it also helps with connecting to the present as well as the future. It is when you lose touch with past history and memories that you get into trouble.

Frankly I find history very interesting and love it. By reading about past events, I get more insight into them. I find Chalamet and porn stars and Instahos to be a complete bore. But I don’t go on the threads to shit all over it because younger folks like things i don’t. Why don’t you just ignore the threads you aren’t interested in? Have you heard of tolerance? I hear it’s all the rage with the kids these days. Try it.

Because even on threads like Smartphones and tech the elders are on them with their out of it opinions r106.

Well it's a good thing then that we have DLers like you around to set them straight (no pun intended)!

Oh what fun and actia we had in the 70s!

Even though I can remember the 70s, the time I'd like to go back to is 2000-2008. We had good, functioning internet then, which gave us a lot of control over our lives in a way impossible previously. There was no threat of terrorism, things were going well economically, and more. From 2009, things started to go downhill with no brakes.

[quote]There was no threat of terrorism

?

[quote]things were going well economically

Dismissing eldergays as "out of touch" with the present is a miscalculation. Some of us just don't find contemporary culture very interesting. We don't want to be in touch with it.

I'm on board with many of the posters here. In a lot of ways, life was better, and our culture (gay culture) was just more exciting. In the 80s we lost a ton of gay men to AIDS, and some have opined (on DL and elsewhere) that the loss of so many gay men in theater, music, design, fashion, production, writing and the arts during that decade actually changed the trajectory of culture as a whole. Things have not been the same.

The complete lack of self-awareness on the part of many on this thread is funny.

Of course things seemed more fun and more vibrant in the 70s

You were all in your 20s.

EVERYTHING seems more fun and more vibrant when you are that age.

Pop culture seems alien now because it's aimed at 18 year olds, not 68 year olds.

Older people looking back on their youth with nostalgia? You didn't invent that.

SMH

And that's just fine, R114. We're irrelevant to today's culture, and it's irrelevant to us. Doesn't that answer OP's question, though?

How does the fact that I still LOOK like I’m in my 20s figure into this equation?

Go to your tictactoc or whatever OP and stay there! This is not for you.

The glory years of sex was the time between the Pill and AIDS.

The world will never see the likes of the Mineshaft or the Anvil ever again.

What does the pill have to do with us?

[quote]Dismissing eldergays as "out of touch" with the present is a miscalculation. Some of us just don't find contemporary culture very interesting. We don't want to be in touch with it.

We knew how to keep in touch...with STYLE.

[quote]The world will never see the likes of the Mineshaft or the Anvil ever again.

Who WANTS all that pervy shit? - unless you're a perv.

Hon, there are ALWAYS pervs. We didn't have to depend on the Internet or cell phones.

[quote]The world will never see the likes of the Mineshaft or the Anvil ever again.

Places like that were disgusting dumps. There's more to life than getting fucked by multiple strangers in some shitty little hovel of a dive bar.

We get to be nostalgic about the rich culture of the 60s, 70s, 80s. You, OP, when you're old, you have a bunch or forgotten narcissists doing forgettable things on TikTok for 20 seconds. If anyone even bothers to archive it. Which they won't.

Maybe THAT'S why the TikTok addicts around here post videos all over the board - as a form of archiving. Lame.

"And on those cold winter nights, you can snuggle up to your smart phone. It's a little lumpy, but it rings."

"Between the pill and AIDS" was the period of hedonism in the wealthy democratic West.

Love it or leave it, it was an amazing era.

And all eras are not equally interesting. I'm privileged to have live through it.

American elder gays are a bit provincial about the glory of gay sex a go go in the 70s. Gay sex clubs and cruising was off the charts in Europe starting in the oughts and then recently spiking again with PREP.

R120, yes, yes, everything was so very stylish. "Shhh. You're gonna have to be a little quieter. Mother's just in the next room there and I need to hear if she calls for me."

I like you, r106.

You’re a good guy, Pops.

But if you want to know how I really feel, fucker....

Speaking for myself, I live in the past because the present and future are fucking terrifying.

Beautiful men

Imaginative artwork that didn't languish in obscurity forever

Delicious food made with real ingredients

Energetic music that makes you want to dance every time you hear it

New political awareness for people who had been held back before.

Comedy that wasn't afraid to take on all sides

Healthy people and very little obesity compared to today

Evil was called evil without any qualifications

Avarice was punished more severely

Theater was considered mainstream entertainment

Everyone could show their face in public

Death was the last thing on anyone's mind

[79] Trannie got triggered. And that pic!

Because they are boring, sex-obsessed, and think of themselves as practically perfect in every way. Really truly deluded both in what they think of themselves and what others think of them.

Practically?

“ Places like that were disgusting dumps. There's more to life than getting fucked by multiple strangers in some shitty little hovel of a dive bar.”

Precisely. Who values vile, loveless promiscuity anc perversion? Good riddance to that gross era.

[quote] Who values vile, loveless promiscuity anc perversion?

*raises both hands*

I live in the present OP. Sometimes I revisit the past. But then, I have a past worth revisiting. Hopefully you will too...

[quote] I live in the present OP.

Like we have a choice?

[quote] Because they are boring, sex-obsessed, and think of themselves as practically perfect in every way. Really truly deluded both in what they think of themselves and what others think of them.

They need to be more forgiving of their human imperfections.

I don't understand why there are so damn many soap opera threads on DL. People who have been watching that crap for DECADES.

If that isn't living in the past, I'm not sure what is.

[quote] Older people looking back on their youth with nostalgia? You didn't invent that.

Younger people thinking their generation is unique and groundbreaking? You certainly didn’t invent that.

SMH

Every generation since the end of WWII has been exponentially more disappointing than the one before it.

Hissssssss

[quote]Younger people thinking their generation is unique and groundbreaking? You certainly didn’t invent that.

No, they don't see their generation/s as unique and groundbreaking or special. They see their place as what they have, the air they breath, the present. But the key of young people is that they see themselves in the present and don't waste their days looking backward to the halcyon days when they were 4 years old

Do they like everything they see? Of course not. But they recognize it's where and when they live. Maybe they grumble and complain, maybe they don't, maybe they are busy "in the moment," maybe they are trying to find a place in the future for themselves.

What they don't do, for all those obvious reasons, is whine constantly that things were so much better 30 or 40 years ago , when they had their hair, when the music seemed fresh, when they were fuckable, when the future held opportunity maybe, when there were only hundreds of thousands of TV channels, when clothes were better, when food tasted good...

Nostalgia is fine in its place, but FFS, it's one thing to recall some Dynasty episode, or how handsome you thought Tom Selleck was, or how you lived for weekends and had so much fun doing something/whatever, how the men were better looking, how the sex was easier, how every bar didn't have a drag show and the bartenders preferred pronouns and people went out - to bars!

But some fuckers have their heads in the sand. They see no purpose of the present except to look backwards. Tom Selleck may have been handsome but put on your fucking spectacles: he's looked like a boil that needs lanced for at least a quarter century and his acting has gotten even stiffer. Not handsome. Time does not improve Laverne & Shirley or LA Law; that shit was common as muck decades ago and worse today. Not the golden age of TV.

Tiktok, you say? Worse than Laverne & Shirley, so don't watch it. Block the tiny handful of DL Tiktokers if you want: problem solved. Make room in your life for something you like that is in the present. Moaning about sex apps that you don't use and the music at gay bars you don't go to and clothes that you don't wear is a waste of everybody's time. And so is having nothing to contribute other than whining about your golden age of Magnum PI and long telephone calls to plot your disco nights out and life pre-Human Resources and when no one gave you the evil eye when you dug in your man satchel to pull out a checkbook to pay for your groceries and get $20 cash back, and how everything was so, so much better in 1990, 1980, 1975.

I'm old enough to remember all but the oldest of nostalgia on DL. Some of the Days of Yore threads are often interesting, but only when there's some perspective deeper than Now = Shit, Then = A Golden Age.

LA Law was pretty good actually.

At least [italic]Laverne & Shirley[/italic] didn't foist Scott Baio or David Schwimmer on us.

Lots of things were better in the 70s, especially cultural and ideological. It wasn’t all about money and net worth, and music and movies were a lot better. However, it was also a less inclusive society (fine by me as a white male). I don’t like the modern world much.

The 1870s was doing fine up until the Compromise of 1876.

[quote]The threads about paying cash, cursive handwriting, complete unfamiliarity with contemporary culture, the ignorance of the most basic tech available today etc. It's kind of mind-blowing.

What [italic]is[/italic] this "most basic tech available today etc." of which I am allegedly ignorant? Some examples, please.

[quote]So is using the self-checkout at the grocery store. That one amuses me a great deal.

I haven't used anything but self-checkout (when available) since it was introduced.

[quote]We just had a thread about Smartphones, self checkouts and how paying in cash is prehistoric and there was lots of flipping out and foaming at the mouth. I couldn't believe it. My seventysomething uncles use the self checkout and never pay in cash anymore. It's like these DLers live in caves and haven't seen the outside world in ages.

I hardly ever pay cash for anything.

As for the smartphone, I prefer using a credit card, or online, my laptop for most transactions, links, etc., because the phone is so small. I'm large of thumb and nothing's going to change that.

[quote] I find it bizarre gay men don’t dance anymore. Maybe we should have focused less on promiscuous sex - but I’ll never regret all the dancing. Deeply spiritually satisfying and a full use of life and mind.

Hated the music, so I stayed away. I like to dance, though.

[quote]Many DLers are single, and even those who are partnered don't seem to have children. They have time to dwell on the past

Ridiculous. I don't know any childless people or couples who have a ton of time on their hands because they have no children. What an old-fashioned, provincial thing to say, especially considering you're going on at length about how modern you are, as compared to these eldergays.

What a lot of people are forgetting is that on both social media and forums, if someone brings up a topic that a couple of people find interesting, the interest in it snowballs and soon you get a lot of replies.

These are replies from people who otherwise wouldn't have spent one second thinking about this particular topic until someone else just happened to bring it up.

Then you get little geniuses like "you dwell on the past because you didn't have children!" up thread who think that, because all they saw you post was a couple of things about I Love Lucy, that it's ALL you ever think about and it's ALL you ever do, and you're OBSESSED WITH THE PAST.

In truth, it's probably some guy who thought about ILL for 45 seconds before he went off to the latest Nephew Josh thread.

Preach R154. What an inane, frauish comment.

[quote] As for the smartphone, I prefer using a credit card, or online, my laptop for most transactions, links, etc., because the phone is so small. I'm large of thumb and nothing's going to change that.

LOL. It's Apply Pay or similar. You just hold the phone over the keypad or tablet where you'd otherwise swipe your credit card.

No need to enter numbers.

Think about it OP

You're an older gay man, retired, with no children and no relatives you're particularly close to.

The future just means death and dying.

So you obsess about the past especially now that you've found Datalounge, a site filled with dozens of other older gay men who share your obsessions.

They just build on each other and norms develop like a post about hating cell phones will get you 15 W&Ws, so you shape your online persona to reflect the cultural norms of the site.

And get very very very very very defensive when called out on it.

Not living there but damn those were fun days. I'd drive my car into Greenwich Village, park, and cruise around all night. We were the generation that made it possible for things like gay marriage and a full platter of civil rights that we didn't even know we were fighting for. We came out to our parents and were accepted and started the ball rolling to what we have today. Think about it. Think of it OP. After thousands of years of living in the dark, nameless and faceless, there was a complete sea change in 50 years due to the people you think you are insulting.

I suspect R159 that the majority of people who did the things you take credit for do not dwell on the past to a large degree.

[quote] LOL. It's Apply Pay or similar. You just hold the phone over the keypad or tablet where you'd otherwise swipe your credit card. No need to enter numbers.

Assuming "Apply Pay" is Apple Pay, I had it on my phone, but I was forever bringing it up when I didn't want or need to use it, so I deleted it. I don't have to enter numbers on my phone when I use a credit card at retail, either.

The "big thumbs" comment was about buying things on websites while on my phone. I'd much rather have the space my laptop affords me. I screwed up a purchase on eBay once when a thumb hit a wrong number, and I'm home a lot, so why bother with the phone?

[quote]I find it bizarre gay men don’t dance anymore. Maybe we should have focused less on promiscuous sex - but I’ll never regret all the dancing. Deeply spiritually satisfying and a full use of life and mind.

I find it more bizarre that anyone gets/got caught up in that "deeply spiritually satisfying and a full use of life and mind" dancing thing. Enjoy it when you do it, fine, but as a way of life?

R158 - I cant decide if that is a self portrait you just painted or a reaction to getting called out on some self indulgent behavior of your own.

And being very, very, very defensive about it.

While I can understand moments of reminiscing or reflecting on the past, I don’t understand fixating on it. The past can be appreciated, but don’t get stuck in it. Move on, embrace the now, even if it’s imperfect. I don’t like being stuck in the past. The past is gone, stale, not real anymore. Move on.

[quote]I don't understand why there are so damn many soap opera threads on DL. People who have been watching that crap for DECADES.

I'm in my forties and I have never known another gay man in my age range or younger who has ever watched soaps. It baffles me too.

It’s a few people here

OP when your turn comes you will understand

The saddest thing to me are the long threads about crap tv shows from the 70s and 80s, and how they're discussed in intricate detail because they're still being binge-watched. I just can't imagine spending hours and hours in front of the tv re-watching every episode of something like Laverne and Shirley or some shit Aaron Spelling series from four decades ago. To me, that would qualify as torture. Those shows were always total garbage.

If OP even gets a turn, r167.

Everything going on in the world right now and THAT'S the saddest thing to you, r168?

The saddest thing in the context of this subject r170.

[quote] Now = Shit, Then = A Golden Age.

I agree that this is bad thinking, but you seem to be making the inverse argument. I think you are far enough away from your youth that you are assigning too much enlightenment to the youth of today.

In so doing, however, you are also walking in the same trenches you have consigned your peers to toil in. While they fondly remember their youth, you appear to resent it and want to embrace the youth of today to escape your own.

The stench of YourMillennialTwat is all over this thread.

Re: Self Checkout

What a badge of honor you guys have decided to hang on your chest. I guess you buy your groceries piecemeal. If I have a full cart, I go straight to the cashier. Then I have somebody to split the labor with.

However, I have to admit that I like the self checkouts that have the traditional automated belt in front of them. Then I can unload the cart in the order I want the items bagged.

My life is so exciting!

Nonetheless, r171, it's a silly, judgmental thing to be "sad" about.

OP, look at the present and the future.

Entertainment died in the mid 90s. Human interaction and decency died with the first smartphones. We were tempted by Apple, just like Adam and Eve.

Overdramatic

Because cunts like you are unbearable, OP, and we prefer to visit what we knew once existed.

[quote]The saddest thing to me are the long threads about crap tv shows from the 70s and 80s, and how they're discussed in intricate detail because they're still being binge-watched.

Then don't open those long threads. I'm not one bit interested in watching or reading about The Golden Girls, Bewitched, Laverne & Shirley, or any or vintage sitcom—or, for that matter, present day shit like RHO** and "CW's DC shows."

So I don't open the threads. I cannot fathom your sadness over this. Who gives a fuck what other people watch on television, or even what they post about on DL? Have you looked into a codependents anonymous meeting?

[quote]OP when your turn comes you will understand

Not OP, but it's not an inevitability to dwell in the past, R167.

I'm lucky that from the time I was in college I always counted many, even a majority of gay friends and acquaintances who were significantly older than me, old enough to dwell in their memories if that had been their path, but it wasn't. These were men and women some of whom were born rich some poor, but they all went on to travel, to study, to mix with other people, to accomplish things in business or volunteer activity or charity, not always earth-shattering things, but interesting things. They had interesting backgrounds, some exceptionally so, but if they had one thing in common I would say it was a profound curiosity. They didn't forget their memories, but they didn't dwell on them either: what they really wanted was to learn new things, to meet new people, to read new books, to learn about new technology, to go new places and see new things, and even listen to new music if only to decide they hated much of it (but they could explain why that was with clarity.) They didn't have to master or like every new thing, but they thought it important to understand something about what other people found important. Sure, they re-read old books, revisted old friends and old familiar places. They didn't discard the past, they just put it in the perspective of the present. They had relationship problems, health scares, their looks changed and faded, they learned to dress in classic styles and avoid trends, fortunes sometimes turned, diets sometimes became important, they were always reaching for their eyeglasses, and worried about what the future held, but none of those reasons made them beat an irritable retreat to the Good Old Days. Ask any of them if they wanted to go back to the past or if they thought things were better then and you would have gotten a very quick "No!" They all lived in the present with a vitality sharpened by the knowledge that their future was not a long one and getting not longer by the year and day.

They had some old-fashioned views, they held onto to some old manners, to some old habits, old recipes, old tastes, old viewpoints but they were anything but they were not sad relics of the past whose only pleasure was "remember that time when..." stories, or get-off-my-lawn indignation about young people or things they didn't see the point of; but they kept up, too, they lived in the present, they sometimes surprised me with views more modern than mine. They didn't shut down and look only backward, bitter that the world have moved on from 20, 30, 50 years ago.

That is the saddest thing for me to see older gay men (of whom I always expect too much, in part because of my older friends when I was young) with no curiosity just crankiness about the present. Even if it's rereading old books and seeing what you think of them now, but not for fucks sake replaying your third-generation VHS tape copies of 1970s TV series for the 218th time because "there is nothing good on TV." Every age is a golden age if you have some curiosity, and it seems old age is a curse if you don't.

Not all older people dwell on the past. Many are very current on their sensibilities and interests.

Never look back...

At 58, I look at some of the past...especially the late 1980’s as surviving the Titanic.(Fast Times at Ridgemont High & Less Than Zero make interesting bookends to that era)....we also didn’t have cell phones and cameras documenting every minute detail...so a lot of it lives on in stories rather than pictures. So many of the guys who would have been in their 60’s/70’s died during the AIDS pandemic and their stories were silenced. My generation grew up watching college kids and hippies challenge the over 30. generations for being too conservative and it feels like a new conservative generation has filled the space between Gen X and the Millenials...I have adapted to the technological changes much easier than the social change but I look forward to hopefully being 78 in twenty years and experiencing the continued change....

Because our penises worked then.

No-one enjoys irrelevancy, OP.

R25 has problems with sarcasm, I see.

No, just unfunny jokes.

Nostalgia is a drug.

[quote]Why do most Eldergays on here live in the past?

Maybe because the current state of the world is depressing as hell.

The gay world had the largest sense of adventure before the internet especially Grindr ruined it!

R191: Not to say that Grindr and sex apps had nothing to do with it, but that "largest sense of adventure" you describe was disappearing fast before the end of the 20thC, years before Grindr appeared on 2009.

Gay bars, gay neighborhoods, gay-centric plumbers and realtors and retail shops and restaurants, gay bookstores, gay news media, gay advertising, membership in gay choruses, gay resorts and gay destinations, gay cities... All that sort of thing was in serious decline pre-Grindr.

Blame hipsters, rising tents, AIDS fatigue, efavirenz, high rents, straight baby buggy pushers gentrifying gay gentrified neighborhoods, Amazon.com. Blame legal gains, blame how the music changed and the fun people all got old or distracted by organic gardening, blame a hundred things but the separate orbit/s of gays and lesbians from the separate universe of straights all had turned sharply onto another course pre-Grindr.

The Seventies are back!

Worlds with no morals and no responsibilities!

OP Troll: if you gave a moment's thought to anything but trolling: when you push into your seventies you suddenly realise that the past is much vaster than your future is likely to be. It is, therefore, far fuller lake in which to bathe. You begin to ponder on the mistakes you made, what you should have done differently, you are also likely mourning the loss of friends and family.

The deterioration of your physical being is both poignant and frightening.

I do hope when you reach Eldergay status yourself you are met with more understanding than you evidence in this disgusting thread.

Try Philip Larkin's tour de force poem, "The Old Fools", you heartless cunt.

I miss the 90s.

The 1890s that is.