Acting Old - Because You're Supposed To?

As I grow older these days, and watch the evolving behaviors of those around me at a similar age (I'll be four oh soon), I'm amazed at how people I know are beginning to act "old", or what I would consider to be old person behavior. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with old person behavior, nothing intrinsically bad or weak or immoral with it - if you are old. To me, at our age, some of these behaviors seem false, artificial, caricature-esque, done as if perhaps they think they need to because that's what they think people do at their age. It's a strange and creepy embracing of age and fate that to me smacks of death, or death in life, buckling up and giving in, playing some role of an older person that comes out of a movie or a book.

Two specific behaviors I am noticing:

• More Vitamins, More Public. As a youngster, who ever took vitamins or even thought to take herbal and dietary supplements? True, we need them more as we age, and they are good for general health. But what gets me is, these people take the vitamins and/or medicine publicly. They buy one of those plastic little day of the week containers (the ones with M-T-W-the, etc., on the compartment lids), carry it around and/or leave it out in their house, or at restaurants, they carry this container, or simply hold the vitamins themselves, and as they eat they put the vitamins on the table - ON THE TABLE - and as they eat they slowly take their vitamins, which may include medicine. That's something I'd MAYBE expect out of an 80 year old, but not someone my age. WTF?
• Ranting about Restaurants. True, as we get older we have more money and can afford to eat out a lot. And that's a great thing. But a restaurant is a fucking restaurant, and who the fuck cares if your food is not the best it could be, or if the service is not 100% perfect? I notice that restaurants and the type of food and service you get has become a typical topic of conversation. Couples meet at a party or for drinks, and they talk about their restaurant experiences: how restaurant X had a terrible waiter, and they waited for an hour for their food, and that they will not go back there. Or, they leave and rant about how good restaurant Y is. Or, while at a restaurant, they will be very impatient and expect perfect service, browbeat waiters, send food back, complain about their steak, and so on. This to me is completely unacceptable. Maybe this is understandable for some retirees who has tons of time on their hands and so need something to talk or complain about, but for someone my age to get into this kind of behavior is, again, totally unacceptable.

Some may see in my writings inner projections (whatever the fuck that means) of my own inadequacies, fear of and death, antipathy and misanthropic invective towards humans, blah blah fucking blah. I don't care. This is old person behavior, and for people around my age to be acting this shit is a defeat, a weakness, a giving into fate, to notions that age brings with it certain proscribed behaviors. Once we start act like we think we're supposed to act, we stop growing and we die.