Anyone else get basically offended when the "old guy crew" at the park (full pads, TSOL on a blue tooth speaker, 11" boards, skating only a bowl, and skating it like its a backyard crew) try to recruit you and pal around with you?
I went to skate with my son (11, getting more confident, but definitely still in phase 1 of learning park skating and ettiquite) yesterday and these dudes were playing up the "old guy" thing so hard and recruiting me for their crew and giving me merch and stuff for their little club...its like, I get it, but I will never understand the assumption that is "here is an old guy with his kid! he's wearing a punk tee shirt and all black and vans! he must become one of us!" No actually I want to just dork around with my son and have fun with him and I dont even own pads. Im not trying to join the old guy crew...I'm actually thinking about skating the curb manual pad in the parking lot or the quarterpipe.
I think there is a real and significant difference between growing old and aging and learning to deal with it gracefully, and then going full-barrel into owning it and making it a part of your personality or how you appear to other people. I am happy to be in the first group, I dont really want to be in the second. The assumption that Hosoi is my favorite skater because I have some grey hair is just really, really weird. (no offense to Hosoi, he's amazing, but Ricky Oyola is my favorite skater of all time).
Is this mostly just a CA thing? Or does this happen everywhere?