Eye of the Beholder

In my continuing efforts to learn a new language that will be useful for my research, I have found that watching movies in this language to be a fun and effective way to keep my skills (such as they are) from eroding over the summer. Not long ago, I was watching one of these movies with some undergraduates (all female, by the way) with whom I took a language class last year, and they all agreed that a particular character was ‘really old’ and therefore they did not approve of his relationship with a younger female character. I was surprised at their reaction -- he didn’t look very old to me. I argued that in fact he was a very attractive man, but I was alone in this opinion. The male character has some gray hair! He has wrinkles by his eyes! Later, I searched online to find a biography of the actor, and discovered that he is exactly my age. I guess that proves it then – he clearly can’t be old..

We all agreed, however, that a different male character, who had recently become engaged, was in fact not ready to get married. The proof: he had large posters of cars and motorcycles on the walls of his bedroom. Perhaps this particular opinion transcends a woman’s age.