35, and Acting Her Age

The writing was on the wall. I spend more time reading the Williams-Sonoma catalog than Mademoiselle magazine. I no longer shop at Bebe; the darts in their blouses are too high for my southbound figure. Instead of spinning Minor Threat records, my stereo is preset to KCRW--Muzak for aging hipsters. Burger King Whopper Meals are no longer a temptation.

Such were the not-so-subtle indicators that I was concluding my stint in the 25-to 34-year-old demographic and moving toward the next statistician-sanctioned life cycle, 35-to-44.

Eleven thousand, six hundred and sixty one other Americans also turned 35 on the day I did last week. Of those, 1,543 were Californians--759 of them women, like myself. How many of us, I wondered, had been experiencing the same seismic demographic shift?

Plenty, it turns out. In the eyes of demographers, we are as transparent as our Clinique Almost Makeup foundation--so predictable that they know what kind of beer we keep in the fridge and coffee we keep in our freezer.

Despite our societal obsession with numbers ending in zero--and the supposed psychological devastation that results from turning 30--the real breaks in life cycle occur mid-decade. Teenagers become adults at 18. Half of all Americans marry at age 25. They tend to buy their first homes in the mid-30s, entrench themselves in careers in the mid-40s, send kids to college in the mid-50s and retire at 65.

There are exceptions to these sweeping generalizations, of course, but, says the publisher of American Demographics magazine, “the bell curve of marriages year by year, births year by year, shows you that things pretty much happen to people roughly at the same time.”

Peter Francese, who founded the New York-based magazine, says “we like 10-year age groups. We like things that end in zero, but life stages are not as neat as that.”

The demographic breakdowns--25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-65--that many advertisers now use to determine the size of their markets grew out of the Census, which began divvying up the population into neat, 10-year segments so it would end evenly at 65, the age of retirement.

It would be unthinkable to have a 29-38 demographic breakdown, Francese said. The average 29-year-old and 38-year-old “don’t have anything in common.”

He didn’t need to tell me about that one. In the six months leading up to my 35th birthday, it was like a higher power was guiding me to alter my behavior.

Women’s magazines I had subscribed to for years and read for hours no longer interested me. Why the change? I’m in a relationship. People are usually paired up by the time they’re 35, Francese said. “Those magazines are usually about finding a guy or attracting a mate and once you’ve done that, what else is there to read about?”

These days I’m more excited to get the Pottery Barn catalog in the mail than the latest Elle. The reason? I’ve settled down. Between the ages of 25 and 34, I lived in six apartments, but last fall I bought my first house. The 35-44 age group is putting down roots and making a home, Francese said. “The older people get, the less likely they are to move

The selection in Nordstrom’s “Savvy” section is more to my liking than the hoochie-mama 20-something clothing stores I’ve shopped in for years. What’s going on? I’m established in a job. People get serious about their careers in their 30s, according to Francese. “When you’re 25 years old, you’re probably in your first or second job. You’re not going to stay there long, so who cares what you wear? But when you’re 35, you’re now getting serious. You’re talking about wanting to stay in a job .... If you want to be taken seriously, you better dress like it.”

The romantic lyricism of R&B; songstress India Arie speaks more to me now than the juvenile humor of the Offspring. The reason? I want to have a conversation. “When you’re 35 ... entertainment is less important than relationships,” Francese said. “The more you move from entertainment to relationships, the more music becomes not an end in itself but a simple adjunct to a relationship.”

Bradley Johnson, deputy editor of Advertising Age magazine, said, “I assure you that there are different strokes for different folks at different ages.”

Citing information from Internet research firm Jupiter Media Metrix, he said the most popular Web sites among 18-to 24-year-olds are https://www.victoriassecret.com, https://mp3.com and https://freecondoms.com. What sites are popular with 25-to 34-year-olds? https://www.bodyforlife.com and https://www.peapods.com.

With 35-to 44-year-olds, Johnson said, “I expect you would start to see some interest in boring topics like IRAs and leisure pursuits. I guess it’s called growing up.”

It’s frightening to be so predictable based only on my age. But it’s even scarier to have psychographics added to the mix. Where demographics determine life cycles, psychographics determine preferences.

Psychographics evolved out of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s

Hierarchy of Needs, which said people must satisfy their needs for food, water and shelter before they can fulfill others, such as needs for safety, love and esteem. It follows, then, that the more education one has, the better the job one gets, the more money one earns, base needs are not an issue. With cost no longer a factor, decisions are made for other reasons, such as status.

To show me how psychographics compliment demographics, Francese asked me five questions: What is my occupation, educational level, parents’ educational level, marital status and parental status. My answers: I’m a journalist, I went to college, both my parents went to college, I’m unmarried and I have no children.

Based on my responses, Francese flawlessly predicted the entire contents of my refrigerator.

Starting with the freezer, he guessed correctly that it contained ice cream, coffee beans and ice--that I had no frozen vegetables or orange juice because I only eat fresh vegetables and drink fresh-squeezed juice. All of which is true.

He also correctly surmised that I am semi-vegetarian and had no meat in my fridge--that I keep a carton of half-and-half on the top shelf, that the beer I drink is imported, that the cottage cheese I eat is low-fat. Once again, a direct hit.

Francese said he stopped playing this game years ago because its accuracy frightened people. He also said my gender, age and income were irrelevant in making his predictions--that it was whether my parents went to college and what I did for a living that said the most about me.

“There’s enormous differentiation in this country by education and occupation,” he explained. “If I know you’re two generations away from working-class America, there’s no way you drink domestic beer or buy sliced white bread. You wouldn’t dream of it.”

Maybe 35 is simply the age when a self-declared punk becomes a bona fide adult. Or maybe it’s when I throw the demographers a curve and have a Wonder Bread sandwich with a Miller Genuine Draft--in a can.