ArcaMax

I was sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office last week when someone I hadn’t seen for many years came in. When he saw me, he said “Bob! How are you? You look great!”

I don’t look great. Since I last saw him, my hair has turned from gray to white, and there’s far less of it. My skin has gone blotchy. The bags under my eyes have gone from brown to blue. And my wattle has become the size of a bullfrog.

“You look great, too, George.”

I lied. George looked about a hundred years older than I remembered him.

Why do we feel compelled to say “You look great” to someone who looks like a fossil?

I’m nearing 80. George must be 82 or 83. No one looks great at our age (unless they’ve had lots of “work” done).

The exchange reminded me of a discussion I had long ago with Fred Whipple, an astronomer who had worked at the Harvard College Observatory for more than 70 years. (Fred discovered that comets were like dirty snowballs.)

Fred was then in his 90s. The evening I met him he was grumpy because he wasn’t feeling well.

“You look great, Fred,” I said when we met.

“I feel like shit.”

“Well,” I stammered, “y-you look just fine.”

Fred proceeded to tell me there were four stages to life: “Youth until 40. Middle age, from 40 to 60. Older age, from 60 to 80.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Then comes, ‘You look great.’”

I laughed. Fred continued: “That’s when people BS you because they don’t know what else to say.”

“You expect them to say, ‘Hi Fred, You look like crap’”?

He began to laugh. “Well, they don’t have to lie.”

Fred knew a lot about comets, but I thought he was wrong about lies.

“You look great” didn’t feel to me like a lie. It felt more like a way of telling Fred — or anyone else getting up there in years — that I was happy they’re still alive, pleased they still have the energy and verve to engage with me, delighted to be in their company again.

And I still feel that way, even now that I’m on the cusp of looking great.

Happy holidays. You look great.