A birthday and a demographic shift

I marked an anniversary of my birth recently, and moved into an entirely new demographic box.

Marketing people like boxes and putting people in boxes, and notice when people inconveniently change which box they were allocated.

I used to sit in one box. A box that defined me by my age, and what other people thought I was interested in.

I was thought to be preparing my children for higher education while paying off my mortgage and pension plan. I was thought to be a middle manager in a white colour office with a salary to match.

I was middle-class, and expected to have middle class interests. A visit to the theatre, the movies occasionally, the odd sporting event. Marketing people decided that restaurants featured large in my life.

But I have jumped boxes. My age has reached a point where the number is too high for the computer driven society to accept my existence in their demographic.

Overnight, I dropped the kids off at university, paid off the mortgage and discovered the delights of holidays to Tuscany and cruise ships.

One day I liked sports, the next morning, I preferred to spend my money on flights to Italy.

Such is how the databases work.

When I fill in a form on a website when it asks my age, it takes that little bit longer to scroll down the list of age ranges. I am one agglomeration of ages further down the html code that defines my presumed existence.

A select box option further away from school leaver and one bit closer to the box marked “65+”, the all encompassing catch-all for “old people, tea and cakes”

No longer can I select the option on the website that says just about passes for decent looking in a dimly lit room, and now I am firmly in the box marked “wrinkles under the suit”.

The database has declared what I am interested in, and I better comply, for the next ten years will be marked by what the database says I ought to be interested in.

What a nuisance I must be, to be so contrary to the whims of the database and dare to live my own life.