Worst Decade of Your Life? These Guys Say It's Not At Midlife

The UK's Independent asked assorted male writers what the worst decade of their life was. Perhaps they expected the answer to be "my forties," since a poll last week reported that in the UK, the male midlife crisis lasts from 38 to 43 (to see why this is probably wrong, see our "What Do You Mean There Are Four, or Five, or Six Types of Midlife Crisis?" and " Does Midlife Crisis Only Happen to Forty-somethings?"). But midlife wasn't the answer they got back.

Instead, four of the seven said their teenage years were the worst. Some of the comments: "You're neither kid nor adult," "girls mutter 'Jeez...' at the sight of you," "Too young to do much of real interest and too old for the innocent recreations of childhood," and "If only we could be spared our teenage years, or rather the memory of them."

Two of the contributors expect very old age to be the worst part of their lives. That may be because they both expect to be infirm and addled -- which isn't necessarily the case.

Alex James, the bass player in '90s band Blur, is the exception: "... there are things I hate about all the ages I've been. I'm 38 now and I have started to grasp that life is a leasehold deal, not a freehold one. When you're young, it feels like you have an eternity, but now I'm realising that life is finite. It's only just started to occur to me."