How buddies & bodies keep the score

A week ago, someone told me, "You don't look your age." This is the kind of sentence that can split your self into 73 Michelle Yeohs, everything, everywhere all at once.

- NISHA SUSAN

One Yeoh is flattered. One Yeoh/you responds, "Oh, how sweet." Another thinks, "Oh, she's just being polite." One you definitely thinks, "You should see me without kajal." Another self wonders, "Are we still saying these things?" And many selves think, "We are now at the age where we are told we don't look our age." It's a full Greek chorus and there is no winning this one unless you are six years old.

If you were a woman, you used to go straight from "too young" to "too old" without passing Go and without collecting 100 in the board game. If you ever had an uncle who ever took a flight, you were sure to hear how Air India had "old crones" as flight attendants. And if you are in your 20s or younger and online today, you are bound to be flooded with Andrew Tate-ish messaging about women over 25 being "low value". It's the same presentation of women's lives as commodities to be consumed by men. I won't say nothing has changed. Enough seems to have changed for the Andrew Tate equivalents to lose their hair over it and attempt mass hypnosis of young men into sillier and sillier editions of patriarchy.