The midlife crisis has no proven biological basis and, in fact, some experts suggest it may be the one major crisis millennials manage to avoid. While getting older may be a universal experience, a full-blown existential crisis requires a fairly privileged starting point: a degree of financial, personal and family stability that allows people to devote time and resources to questioning their lives and, of course, reinventing them.
In the 1960s, psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques argued that, as we approach 40, we begin to confront our own mortality more consciously, a realization that can be accompanied by a profound sense of unease. For decades, that anxiety found expression, particularly among men and according to their means, in a series of recognizable gestures. At one end was the businessman who left his wife, started a relationship with a younger woman and bought a sports car; at the other, the forty-something who simply got a tattoo or dyed his hair platinum blond. These are different ways of dramatizing a break with one’s previous life and convincing oneself that there is still time to start over.
But things are changing. The new sports car is a high-end espresso machine. One social media user asks: “1980–1996 friends… how’s that midlife coffee crisis going?” Another says: “Having a coffee cabinet is the best kind of mid-life crisis. Because middle age is about brewing coffee in different ways yourself.”
Let’s not forget that Brad Pitt, David Beckham and George Clooney are among the stars who have become the new faces of coffee, including coffee pods. The fact that these products are promoted by middle-aged men suggests that some people are navigating their midlife crisis through caffeine rather than horsepower.
Of course, there is already a name for this phenomenon. Writing in Robb Report about the “obsessive, intensive and expensive” ways in which men indulge their passion for coffee, Mark Ellwood coins the term MAMIC, Middle-Aged Man Into Coffee. He also references the MAMIL, Middle-Aged Man in Lycra, the Lycra-clad middle-aged man who throws himself wholeheartedly into cycling.
“The car has become too obvious, a victim, so to speak, of its own clichéd status,” writes Max Scharnigg in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. “In general, the car as a symbol of success now works only up to a point, whether it’s a Porsche or a Mercedes G-Class. Quite simply, it no longer says much about a man’s actual status when any youngster can show up driving an AMG with an enormous engine.”
The journalist reflects on how the affluent middle classes in Western countries now prefer subtler ways of displaying status. The symbols men use to assert themselves, both to themselves and to their peers, are no longer primarily meant to signal wealth or professional success. Instead, they signal expertise. Scharnigg concludes: “For several years now, there has been a curious category of objects that comes into its own in middle age: things that require specialist knowledge or reflect a personal passion. The new equation of social distinction in midlife could therefore be summed up as: time plus sacrifice equals status.”
Marcos Apud, a psychologist and expert in neuro-longevity, explains that men between the ages of 40 and 50 grew up watching their fathers accumulate possessions as status symbols, only to realize at some point that those things did not make them happier or healthier. “Middle age no longer asks, ‘What do I have?’ but ‘How do I feel?’ The expensive bicycle, the pizza oven, the specialty coffee machine… these are not indulgences; they are investments in personal experience, in rituals, in the quality of everyday life. Status has become internal. And, from a biological perspective, that makes perfect sense: by the time you reach 40, your body starts sending clear signals. If you don’t listen to them, you’ll pay the price,” he says.
“There is a genuine element of maturity to it,” he adds. “Today’s middle-aged man has more information than ever about what is good for his body and mind, and he is beginning to act accordingly. Going to the gym for health reasons, eating better, protecting personal time… that’s not vanity; it’s biological intelligence. Now, it would be naïve to deny that identity also plays a role. Appearance matters. But the difference from previous generations is that today that image is built from the inside out: first I take care of myself, and then it shows. Not the other way around,” he adds.
“A certain level of status gives people access to the financial resources that make a particular lifestyle possible,” says Antoni Bolinches, author of El síndrome de las supermujeres (The Superwoman Syndrome). “As men lose youth and gain maturity and status, they come to realize that happiness is possible at any stage of life, so long as they do not try to achieve it in the same way.”
According to the psychologist, the difference is also shaped by the social expectations placed on men and women. “Women receive the message that they must not age, which leads them to resist the passage of time and try to preserve their youth. Men, by contrast, grow up in a culture that presents aging as an opportunity to gain maturity and experience, allowing them to view getting older in a more positive light,” he says.
Chris Rovzar argues in Bloomberg that today’s middle-aged men face growing pressure to prolong their years of sexual attractiveness: “Americans have become obsessed with longevity, extending not just our lifespan but also our ‘healthspan’ — how long we live healthfully and happily. As a result, what middle age looks like has shifted too, thanks to everything from skincare to surgery. If we feel young and healthy on the inside, why wouldn’t we want to look that way on the outside? Now we’re all about extending our ‘hotspan.’”
Running, endless cycling sessions and, of course, Hyrox (something of a new-generation CrossFit), have become the new face of the midlife crisis, alongside cosmetic enhancements. “Hyrox over 4’s new dad life! The midlife crisis is now voluntary suffering running round in circles,” Hyrox coach Charlie Hendrie jokes on social media. “Still showing up. Still puttin in the work. No excuses.”
The problem arises when enthusiasm borders on obsession. Rafael San Román, author of ¿Qué le cuento a mi psicólogo? (What Do I Tell My Psychologist?), warns against taking self-care too far. “We often think that by doing a certain kind of exercise or eating in a certain way we’re looking after our health when, in reality, we’re not only gaining nothing from it but actually putting more pressure on ourselves. Many men in their forties and fifties may be trying to put their foot on the accelerator to preserve something that can’t be preserved, or to achieve for the first time something they’ve never had.”
The urge is understandable. “Perhaps we feel that the last trains are leaving the station when it comes to physical attractiveness, sexual appeal or certain life experiences. But instead of approaching it in a healthy, integrated and mature way, we try to compensate, in an unbalanced fashion, for shortcomings we perceive in earlier years. We become obsessed with last chances and lost youth. That’s when everything starts to unravel,” he warns.
“What women often seem able to do, namely confront a life crisis by drawing, at least initially, on their own resources, through self-reflection or by seeking therapy covered by health insurance, appears to be more difficult for men,” Scharnigg writes. “They need to make a considerable investment, perhaps to convince themselves they are really taking change seriously. Naturally, one doesn’t carry a pizza oven or an espresso machine under one’s arm, so they don’t work exactly as status symbols. They do work, however, as discreet badges for those in the know. ”
He continues: “What used to be that lakeside house on Lake Como, casually slipped into conversation, can now be an apparently offhand reference to the La Marzocco GS3 coffee machine you have at home: a kind of code recognizable only to fellow initiates.” The machine in question costs around €8,000 ($9,200). In this case, it is an exceedingly expensive example of an “if you know, you know” purchase, an inside joke for connoisseurs.
Perhaps the difference lies in how each generation experiences its midlife crisis. The previous one longed to recapture lost youth through conspicuous symbols of success and pleasure, while the current generation tries to turn consumption into expertise and use it to build a new version of itself. Because even when the money is spent on expensive pizza ovens or coffee machines, the purchase alone is not enough; what matters is mastering details such as roast profiles or bean varieties. In the past, people bought themselves a new life. Today, they acquire the tools to shape one. The goal is no longer to escape, but to become the kind of man who can better appreciate what he already has.
And however irritating some may find it to listen to a middle-aged man explain every step of his quest for the perfect cappuccino, that will always be more appealing, and certainly less ridiculous, than watching someone rev the engine of a sports car despite knowing that speed limits leave little room for showing off.
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