69-year-old Emile Ratelband wants to legally change his age to 49 so he can find a new job and meet more women on dating apps.
Ratelband has filed a lawsuit against the Dutch government over its rejection of his application to change his age on his birth certificate. Ratelband said he has two reasons for desiring the change. First, Ratelband feels that he would be more appealing to employers at age 49. Second, Ratelband feels that he would have more success with women on dating apps like Tinder if he was 49.
“You can change your name. You can change your gender. Why not your age? Nowhere are you so discriminated against as with your age,” the 69-year-old told a local news outlet.
“When I’m 69, I am limited. If I’m 49, then I can buy a new house, drive a different car. I can take up more work. When I’m on Tinder and it says I’m 69, I don’t get an answer,” he added.
Ratelband’s story draws instant comparisons to Rachel Dolezal, a former NAACP chapter president who falsely claimed to be African-American. Dolezal wrote a book and starred in a Netflix series about the backlash she experienced.
“There’s no protected class for me,” Dolezal told the Guardian in 2017. “I’m this generic, ambiguous scapegoat for white people to call me a race traitor and take out their hostility on. And I’m a target for anger and pain about white people from the black community. It’s like I am the worst of all these worlds.”
Ratelband and Dolezal seem to have a lot in common. Dolezal claims that race is a “social construct.” It’s likely that Ratelband believes that his age is just a social construct as well.
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