69-year-old man trying to legally change his age to 49, despite 69 being the best age
It was Søren Kierkegaard who said that “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” And it is Søren Kierkegaard who, 163 years after his death, is about to be proven wrong. Dutch entrepreneur Emile Ratelband, a “self-help guru” who describes himself as a “young god,” has informed a Netherlands court that he’d like to change his age from 69 to 49. Why? Because Tinder, apparently, is no country for old men.
“When I’m on Tinder and it says I’m 69, I don’t get an answer. When I’m 49, with the face I have, I will be in a luxurious position,” Ratelband told De Telegraaf, likely while curling a 10-pound dumbbell.
Ratelband, who The Washington Post reports tried (and failed) to name two of his seven children “Rolls” and “Royce,” is angling to change his date of birth from March 11, 1949 to March 11, 1969. The idea was apparently put into his head by doctors, who created this monster when they told him that he had the body of someone “more than 20 years younger than himself.” Here is a picture of him:
If you’re wondering why he doesn’t just lie like the rest of us, he argues that that would be a lot of work. “I don’t want to lie,” he said. “If you lie, you have to remember everything you say.”
Ratelband argues that if transgender people are able to legally change their sex, then he should be able to change his age. “We can make our own decisions if we want to change our name, or if we want to change our gender. So I want to change my age,” he told the Post. “My feeling about my body and about my mind is that I’m about 40 or 45.”
If you’re catching whiffs of Trump’s unchecked ego on this guy, you’re not wrong. Ratelband is a huge fan of the U.S. president. “He is just himself,” he told the Post. “Trump is the first one who is honest. He shows his emotion on Twitter, saying to everyone, ‘Shut up.’ He’s a new kind of person.”
For the record, there’s nothing wrong with being 69. There is no other age, after all, where its reveal is met with a well-timed “nice.”