Don’t screw up the picture. Do not use your professional headshot, the one the company paid to have taken back in ’02 that features you stiff and smiling against no-seam. Way too formal. Do not substitute pictures of your kids or, even worse, you as a kid. And please, I don’t want to friend your cat. Ironic pictures of toy robots or Glinda the Good Witch are permissible, but best is a simple, pretty, flattering, relaxed picture of you taken by someone who really loves you – like yourself. Instant facelift: Hold the camera over your head and look up when you shoot.

For more tips on how not to act old on Facebook, click here.

Don’t be on a perennial diet. Always on a diet, yet never at the weight you want to be? Yup, that’s me, and I suspect it’s a lot of you too. But dieting for decades on end and never being thin thing isn’t just old, it’s depressing. Younger (and more cheering): Work hard to get to the weight you want to be. Then stay there. (Please note: I know this is excellent advice. I just can’t manage to follow it.)

For more tips on how not to act old on a diet, click here.

Don’t bring your entire house to the beach with you. Dragging four chairs, two umbrellas, the air- conditioner-sized cooler, towels, extra towels, suntan lotions in three different SPF levels, a few thousand pages of reading material, plus enough food and drink to sustain everyone on the sand through a hurricane will not only make you seem old, it will make you feel it.

For more tips on how not to act old at the beach, click here.

Liam, George, Brad, Will, Bruce, Clive — oh God, Clive. They may look great to us, but younger women think they’re just crusty. So what’s the answer? To try and get turned on by Zac and . . . oh, I guess they’re all named Zac. Never mind. Just keep your old crushes to yourself.

For more tips on how not to act old with celebrities, click here.

Emoticons are one of those things that, like Heidi Montag and rap music, I’ve been hoping would just disappear. But that I am starting to think will be here long after I’ve shriveled away. Yet despite their pervasiveness and staying power, I still can’t bring myself to actually use them. Why? Because I think they’re %-) and using them makes me feel like an XP (an idiot, as I just had to explain to my editor). Plus, learning to speak emoticon at this age is like learning to speak French, I mean French using all the proper tenses and nouns beyond croissant and bathroom. In other words, impossible.

For more tips on how not to act old with emoticons, click here.

Stop talking about menopause already! it seems to me the only thing more boring and unseemly than discussing getting your period is discussing not getting your period. Some of you might say my position on this issue is old, and that the modern stance is to be openly affirmational about the feminine circle of life. Well, I can get all woman-y with the best of them, girlfriend, and I get that public is the new private. But I still say keep the whole blood-in-your-cooter thing to yourself. 

For more tips on how not to act old with hot flashes, click here.

Don’t skip celebrating. Trust us, giving the holiday a total pass can make you feel distressingly over the hill. Say no to canned sentiment. Letting someone else express your feelings (i.e., a greeting card) screams old. Stick it to the industry by making your own hand-glittered card or hand-writing a love letter (which is retro, not old). Or show some 21st-century soul with an individualized tumblog (look it up) or a sweet tweet: 140 affection-filled characters. Avoid avoiding lingerie. Trotting around in a lacy underthing is one tradition no generation should be quick to scrap. You do, however, want to beat him to the purchasing punch-or risk receiving something too scanty, too sheer or too ridiculous to actually wear. While you’re at the store, pick him up a pair of silk bikinis, or boxers with hearts and kisses on them. Why should you be the only one lookin’ silly for love?

For more tips on how not to act old on Valentine's Day, click here.

Don’t arrive at the crack of dawn and make everybody feel guilty for not being there as early as you. If you’re bushy-tailed and at your desk by 6:35, at least have the good grace to keep your mouth shut about it. Don’t bring the donuts. You don’t need to be Mommy or Daddy. Stifle the self-aggrandizing anecdotes. Reminiscing about the year you almost won the Pulitzer or that time you saved the company a million dollars won’t convince people you’re cooler than they already think you are. No long-range planning. Looking too far ahead, wanting firm commitments on times and places far (i.e., more than a day or two) into the future, is definitely an old thing. If you simply must plan (I know I must), do it in secret and be flexible if things change.

For more tips on how not to act old at work, click here.

Want more How Not to Act Old? Click below! . . .

How Not to Act Old With Your Hair

How Not to Act Old at Work

How Not to Weekend Old

How Not to Act Old in Bed

How Not to Act Old On a Diet

How Not to Act Old at the Beach

How Not to Act Old With Celebrities

How Not to Act Old On Facebook

How Not to Act Old On Twitter

How Not to Act Old: Hot-Flash Special

How Not to Act Old With Emoticons

How Not to Act Old: Nostalgia Edition

How Not to Act Old: Men's Edition

How Not to Act Old with a Younger Man

Does This Cocktail Make Me Look Old?

How Not to Act Old On YouPorn

How Not to Act Old: Dying--So Not Cool!

How Not to Act Old On Valentine's Day

How Not to Phone Old

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