Men, No One Is Buying Your 'Mid-Life Crisis'
In a shocking poll by 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair, a television news magazine and an actual magazine both run by men who are beyond middle age, apparently six out of 10 Americans believe that when a man claims to be the victim of a mid-life crisis, he's just calling a preemptive sort of "safesies" for all the bad behavior he's about to engage in. The results of the poll were released on Monday, as part of the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair's <strike>man-shaming</strike> pulse-taking of America and how she feels about its men:
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The near-60 percent results were the responses of more than 1,100 American adults, who seem to have witnessed things like Kelsey Grammar's dating habits over the past few years. "A midlife crisis usually happens unexpectedly, like when you're shaving in the mirror one day and it dawns on you that you're not going to be president of the United States and your best days may be in the rear view mirror," reads the poll, highlighting some lofty goals for the average American.
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The poll coincidentally was released in the wake of old person sex guru and Daily Beast editor Tina Brown going full Carrie Bradshaw on us and explaining how Viagra has changed the game for old rich dudes and made lives for third wives very, ummm, difficult. "Except for the age of the newly single men on the dating market—80 is the new 55—it is astonishing to see how nothing has changed in the social dynamics of divorce," she writes, adding "high-gloss girlfriends who close the marriage deal often now discover that, thanks to the little blue pill, there is no safe plateau even for third wives."
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So if 80 is the new 55, and factor in Viagra and all the old dudes who are now suddenly spry...carry the three and round up—we are probably in a perfect storm of not trusting men and their mid-life crises. And obviously that's damaging, to people who actually have mid-life crises. According to WebMD, the choose-your-own-adventure diagnostic website that ultimately always ends with cancer, midlife crises and the depression that come with are real things and can actually result in serious things like thoughts of suicide. "The midlife transition is looked on, more and more, as a normal part of life," the site says referring to those in the medical field, not those who answered the poll. And according to the Mayo Clinic, there is such a thing as male menopause, an actual dip in testosterone levels, that we shouldn't overlook—something to think about the next time you giggle at the next old dude in the sports car.
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Photo by: Paul Vasarhelyi via Shutterstock
