Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, and the right to take your shirt off after 60

I turned 62 in June, and for the last several summers I’ve had the same ritual anxiety. As the days get shorter and my beloved sun starts to sink, and I gain another year, I ask myself: Is this the last summer I can run without my shirt?I’ve spent most of my life taking rigorous care of my body. These days that means 45 minutes of super-set lifting, and nine mile runs, at least five days a week. My shirt comes off as soon as the temperature hits 70. And, every year I brace for the moment someone looks at me and thinks, "Look at the old man running without a shirt."This summer, something surprising happened. Guys half my age, all under 40, started stopping me on my runs. Some of them I pass frequently, and in one case a 21-year-old started running next to me. They were guys who are genuinely serious about their fitness, the kind who look like they live at the gym.They all wanted to know my age. When I told them, I got everything from "you’re insane" to "I would’ve guessed 50" to "wow” to “you are super fit." One 28 year-old “kid” gives me a high five every time he passes now and calls me his hero. And each time, I laugh.I am no one’s hero, I respond to no one in particular.Related: What it’s like to be a gay man at 60I say this with humility, and for a reason. All my life, when talking about my looks, I’ve joked that I’m no Tom Cruise. Lately, I’ve started to question that. Granted, he’ll always be better looking than me, but in a lot of ways he’s having the same moment I am, just with a way bigger audience, and in some cases, a more visceral reaction.At 64, Cruise appeared on the cover of GQ last week with his shirt open, belly button and all, and the internet lost its mind. “Gross,” one commenter wrote. “Ewwwww,” posted another. One woman said her 65-year-old husband — beer belly, six-pack a night, and doesn’t exercise — looks better than Cruise. True or not, that guy has a really loving wife.Let me be honest: I’m not a