E-Mail This Article to a Friend Off the market I’ve got one year left in the coveted 18-to-34-year-old demographic. What happens then? BY ALAN OLIFSON

I have a summer birthday (August 16, if you want to send a belated gift). As a kid, this was kind of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I missed out on all the attention at school. Plus, a lot of kids would be out of town, so it was always harder to pad my birthday-party guest list and appear popular. (Though Rodney, the kid who ate his own boogers, was inevitably available. Thanks, Rodney.) On the other hand, it’s summer: waterslides, beaches, camping, picnics — summer is party time. I laughed at all those suckers stuck opening presents underneath the oppressive roof of a bowling alley or skating rink. I could open mine in the great outdoors, under the clear blue sky, displaying them directly to God. "Nice Han Solo in full Hoth Ice Planet gear," God would say, smiling down at me.

As an adult, though, my birthday’s season seems to matter less and less because, regardless of the outdoor conditions, it’s most likely to be celebrated under the harsh glow of fluorescent lights. Ah yes, the office birthday party. What better way to celebrate another year of enriching life experiences than by standing around a grocery-store cake at 4:10 p.m. while a bunch of vultures who didn’t even know it was your birthday until 4:07 rush through an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday," scarcely hiding the fact that they’re just in it for the sugar? "Happy birthday, dude ... I like the frosting; can I have that piece with your name on it?" Yeah, just what I wanted for my birthday: awkward conversation with semi-acquaintances.

But this year, where and with whom I was celebrating my birthday was the least of my concerns. And not just because I realized the Han Solo action figure whose head I had long ago burned off in a week-long orgy of Star Wars–figurine terror is now fetching more than a grand on eBay. It’s also because this year, I turned 34. Yes, 34. Sound familiar? Maybe you recognize this age from its appearance in the phrase, "The coveted 18-to-34-year-old-male demographic."

In Logan’s Run, when your life clock hits 30, they terminate you. As it turns out, here in reality things aren’t much better. You get an extra five years on your life clock, but then, bam, they stop marketing to you. I am standing at the precipice, looking into the advertising abyss.

I can’t even remember what not being marketed to feels like. I imagine the whole television landscape will seem like the WB. Cell-phone commercials already scare the hell out of me. They’re like glimpses into another world where people are always simultaneously dancing, drinking, and text-messaging across crowded bars, an activity I can only assume is actually going on somewhere in the real world even though it takes me longer than the duration of a commercial to type "hi there" into my phone when devoting my full attention to the keypad. Not that "hi there" is all that high on the list of things hip, young, coveted people say in their text messages. What the hell do I know? I’m 34. I’m one year away from trying to figure out what the kids are saying these days by watching Mountain Dew commercials.

How did this happen? It seems like just yesterday Fox debuted as a weekend-only network, shamelessly pandering directly to me with shows like Women in Prison (which, God willing, will be the subtitle of next season’s The Simple Life 3). But before ABC, NBC, and Fox all abandon me to the fickle whims of CBS and endless Friday nights of JAG, I have one last year to bask in the glow of Madison Avenue’s amour.

And I plan to go out large.

I am going to savor this year like a 13-year-old home-schooled boy savors the torn page of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue he found on the street. I am going to switch phone plans every month. Try a new toothpaste every day. I am going to drink C2.

And I have absolutely no idea why. I realize it’s ridiculous to get so worked up about falling out of favor with advertisers. And even more ridiculous to financially reward them for arbitrarily abandoning me. I mean, why stop courting potential customers after 34, anyway? According to the editor of American Demographics magazine (I love Google), it’s because we 18-to-34-year-olds are "less loyal to a particular product and more willing to try new products." Or, in the words of a media-buying company CEO, we "haven’t made all [our] brand choices."

Sweet holy bejesus, things are worse than I thought. If I’m no longer coveted, fine, I’m working on that. And I’ve come to terms with being a bit behind the curve for my age: no house, no kids, no wife, not even a proper full-time job. But making all my brand choices by the time I’m 35? Logan’s Run seems sane by comparison. Maybe 35 years was plenty of time to make all of one’s brand choices back in the ’50s, but have you been down the snack aisle lately? You need 35 years just to settle on a variety of Doritos.

In fact, I’ve changed my mind — I’m not going to go out large. I’m going to go out with grace and dignity. Let the young end of the coveted spectrum worry about chasing fads. I’m going to quietly bide my time until next year, when I can finally sit back, relax, tuck my old college T-shirt into my khaki shorts, secure it with a nice braided belt, kick up my tube-socked feet, and watch the trends go by.

My goal for 34: settle on a brand of chips.

The still-coveted Alan Olifson can be reached at alan@olifson.com