History Main / AgeInsecurity

** A male version occurs in "Assassins" when Winston Churchill reacts badly to his portrait by Graham Sutherland because it shows him as he is, not as the dignified elder statesman he sees himself as.

** A male version occurs in "Assassins" when Winston Churchill reacts badly to his portrait by Graham Sutherland, because it shows him as he is, not as the dignified elder statesman he sees himself as.
** In "Dear Mrs. Kennedy", Queen Elizabeth II notes the signs of encroaching middle-age that make her less secure when dealing with the glamorous First Lady. By the start of Season 3 (when she's recast with an older actress) the Queen is presented with his portrait on the stamps and when her courtiers dance around the subject of how she's not as beautiful as she used to be, the Queen replies that "old bat" is the term they're looking for, and that age is [[StiffUpperLip just something they all have to accept]].

* ''Threatre/{{Chicago}}'': During "We Both Reached For The Gun" when Billy marionettes Roxy like a puppet at her press conference with the media, one reporter asks Roxy how old she was when she arrived in Chicago. Despite the fact she's supposed to be just puppetting Billy's answers, Roxy not-so-subtly elbows Billy in an unspoken demand of "don't make me look old" -- Billy breaks the rhyming structure of the song to have her answer "don't remember", which simultaneously avoids giving a hard answer to the question and also paints her as an innocent DumbBlonde if she can't even do basic math since she had just stated she had arrived in the city four years prior in 1920.

** Also, in one episode Liz pretends to be in her twenties to justify a relationship with an allegedly twenty-five-year-old guy [[ReallySeventeenYearsOld who turns out to be only twenty]], and she agonizes over the fact that, for her usual feminist reasons, she's always promised herself she would never lie about her age.

* In the ''Literature/{{Elenium}}'' trilogy, Sparhawk is continually stymied in any attempt to learn the age of Sephrenia, the instructor of the Pandion Knights in magical studies. He knows that she taught his father and grandfather, and still looks like quite a young woman, but she refuses to give any sort of straight answer; a person's exact age, she explains, can be a deadly tool in the wrong hands. Eventually, the Child-Goddess Aphrael tells him that even she doesn't know the answer for sure, but Sephrenia (who is her high priestess) was the eldest child of the most recent couple to raise Aphrael in a human incarnation - and that was at least several hundred years ago.

** In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', Sergeant Jackrum is keen to conceal his age, mostly because he's well past retirement age and [[ReluctantRetiree doesn't want to go]]. When his retirement papers finally catch up with him, he claims he [[Totally18 lied about his age]] when he first signed up, and is not actually retirement age after all, then signs up again. It's not the first time he's done this, either: Blouse points out that the record currently shows he enlisted at the age of ''five''. He eventually tells Polly that at some point he lost track of his real age himself.

** ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', Sergeant Jackrum is keen to conceal his age, mostly because he's well past retirement age and [[ReluctantRetiree doesn't want to go]]. When his retirement papers finally catch up with him, he claims he [[Totally18 lied about his age]] when he first signed up, and is not actually retirement age after all, then signs up again. It's implied it's not the first time he's done this, either.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', Sergeant Jackrum is keen to conceal his age, mostly because he's well past retirement age and [[ReluctantRetiree doesn't want to go]]. When his retirement papers finally catch up with him, he claims he [[Totally18 lied about his age]] when he first signed up, and is not actually retirement age after all, then signs up again. It's implied it's not the first time he's done this, either.

* The Doctor in ''Series/DoctorWho'' sometimes lies about their age. In "The Ribos Operation" the Fourth Doctor claims to be 756, which Romana corrects to 749. In "The Day of the Doctor" Eleventh says he's "1200 and something, unless I'm lying. I don't remember if I'm lying about my age, ''that's'' how old I am." This has, of course, provided a useful {{handwave}} for every time the Doctor claims their age to be a random three or four figure number that doesn't fit anything else.

* In the sequel to ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'', D'Artagnan and Aramis reconnect. Aramis mentions being thirty-seven and D'Artagnan immediately calls him out: He himself is fourty, and Aramis used to be his senior by three years. Aramis admits to the "maths error" (read: outright lie) but begs D'Artagnan not to tell any of his (Aramis') friends his true age.

It's commonly accepted that no one wants to get old and that [[MenGetOldWomenGetReplaced a woman getting old is pretty much]] [[DoubleStandard the worst thing that can happen]]. For this reason, a lot of people don't want their age advertised past a certain birthday, and "never ask a lady her age" is a stock etiquette rule. Someone's reasons for lying about their age or keeping it a secret may vary, from being in a business (such as acting) where they risk being put out to pasture if they're seen as too old, to vanity or a delusional wish to cling to a young person's lifestyle, to simply feeling that it's private information. Usually it's TheNotSecret, sometimes even an OpenSecret, but at any rate, [[HilarityEnsues it's bound to become a talking point]], and they won't be happy about it.

* Manuela's age in ''Videogame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' is officially listed as "Secret".

* [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-three-are-going-to-lie-to-you "All Three Are Going to Lie to You"]] is a meme template consisting of "Never ask a woman her age; a man, his salary; [[RuleOfThree an X their Y]]", where X is a person or group and Y is a similarly awkward or shameful fact about them.

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* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': Lestat de Lioncourt is [[ProudBeauty vain]], so he doesn't like it when others bring up his age. In "[[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E4TheRuthlessPursuitOfBloodWithAllA ...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding]]", he does the vampire equivalent of claiming that he's 39 years old when he's actually 40.

* ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'': In an early episode, Tamayo implies that she's been around for over 2 centuries. When Tanjiro asks her age out of shock, Yushiro angrily calls him out on his rudeness.

* A running joke in ''{{VideoGame/Touhou}}'' fanworks ([[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou and commenters on fanworks]]) is to have someone claim Yukari Yakumo's (one of the oldest and most powerful of all Gensokyo's youkai) real age is 17,000 (see Real Life below) and immediately get teleported (or "*gapped*") to who-knows-where, or otherwise claiming that yes, Yukari is not a day over 17, absolutely.

* ''LightNovel/MyYouthRomanticComedyIsWrongAsIExpected'' Shizuka Hiratsuka is a 30-year-old teacher who refuses to admit her age. She gets upset whenever the subject is brought up.

Women who fall under the ChristmasCake trope in Japanese media are known to be insecure about their age due to societal pressures.