No I don't think I was once Cleopatra

May 2, 2011 6:28 PM

What does it mean when someone calls you an old soul?

I've been told this numerous times throughout my life, starting from when I was very young (first time I can remember I think I was five and it was a school teacher talking to my mom) and on through the years. Just the other day a more recent acquaintance was describing me to someone else new and used the phrase "she's an old soul" and it really got me thinking.

First of all, I'm not going to go around assuming everyone who says this believes in reincarnation or even the existence of souls - I certainly have no concrete opinion on the matter. So what does it actually mean in real life? Are they calling me some kind of wise? Is it actually a bit insulting? Do I act older than my age? I've always been really willing to talk about serious things and I rarely dodge personal questions, so maybe it's something about my openness in this arena?

What do you mean when you call someone else an old soul? Or rather, what are people actually trying to say about me?

posted by Mizu to Human Relations (22 answers total)

I tend to think it's someone who is wise beyond his/her years, or seems to have a lifetime of experience that isn't accounted for in his or her physical existence.

I think "old soul" is almost always a compliment, in that you handle things, feel things, or understand things in a mature way that you'd expect out of an elder.
posted by xingcat at 6:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I've received this compliment a few times and was always very flattered. It made me feel like Jo March or Anne Shirley.
posted by WaspEnterprises at 6:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [19 favorites]

Here's a picture and caption that sums it up, I think. I saw this a few days ago and the kid's description by his father stuck with me. I've always thought it meant that you had a capacity to feel deeply, unexplained by your age or range of experience.
posted by raisingsand at 6:41 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

With little kids, it can sometimes carry a twinge of negativity- 80% complimentary, but with a little tongue-in-cheek humor: it can mean "look at that precocious mini- adult, how quirky and funny that a kid is so serious." Or in other words, "stop asking 'why' and go play."

with young adults and teenagers, it's pretty much an unadulterated compliment. It means you say wise and thoughtful things, typically, or correctly understand peoples' motives.
posted by Nixy at 6:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

When I've heard or used that phrase, it means that the person who has an 'old soul' has a kind of graceful maturity that can't be attributed to age or experience.

What a lovely compliment. Soak it up and relish it!
posted by malibustacey9999 at 6:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Seconding that it's shorthand for empathy, thoughtfulness, and seriousness (of the mellow variety that can laugh freely, rather than the grim sort that usually has angry undercurrents to it) that occurs without affectation--being those things without acting those qualities, in other words. Self-awareness without the self-conscious defensiveness.

When applied to younger children, it can often carry connotations that the kid displays a higher-than-average degree of executive function and self-control.
posted by Drastic at 6:56 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Pretty much nthing the above. It suggests a calmness and subtlety of spirit to me. A child experiences the world in simple and often extreme terms ("OMG, this ice cream is the BEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE!"; "oh no, I dropped my ice cream, it's the END OF THE WORLD!"); but an adult appreciates the world in a lot more shades of emotional color. And in a more measured fashion: yeah, you like ice cream, and you're disappointed if you drop it, but you take it all as part of the ebb and flow of life.

It says that you're free of youthful impulsiveness, arrogance, and self-centeredness. It says that you have patience, kindness, unpretentious wisdom. Kind of a second cousin to "still waters run deep".
posted by ixohoxi at 7:12 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've always used the term to connote being "comfortable in one's own skin". That is, an old soul possesses a level of self-awareness and, especially, self-acceptance that means they have nothing to prove or defend.
posted by DrGail at 7:14 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

An old counselor from an afterschool program that I used to go to as a young child recently got back in touch with me. She told be about how as a 6-year old, I seemed wise beyond my years and was an old soul. She recounted a few stories that I think illustrate what she meant by old soul.

I think the calmness mentioned above played into it. Not to say I didn't throw tantrums (I did!) but I often said little things to calm her down as well. One time a bottle of tempera paint smashed on the ground and made a huge mess on the floor. She had had a very long day, was frayed and near the end of her rope. I looked up at her, and just said, "It's just paint" and she suddenly had everything snap into perspective.

Something about a child not overreacting and being very controlled about a stressful situation makes them seen as if they have a greater perspective. These are the old souls.
posted by piratebowling at 7:29 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just adding another vote for it being a lovely, warm compliment that recognises maturity and strong sense of self.
posted by prettypretty at 7:30 PM on May 2, 2011

I used to get "old soul" and "too smart for his own good" in equal proportions. I know what each ostensibly means, but I never liked either. I think it really means the user of the phrase doesn't understand the subject well enough to make a meaningful evaluation.
posted by cmoj at 7:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure if this is what popularized it, but it was used in the Natalie Portman movie 'Beautiful Girls' to describe Portman's precocious kid. She says it about herself, though. The movie aired constantly on Comedy Central.

I've heard it once or twice. Being a negative type I took it to mean that I was too pessimistic.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:35 PM on May 2, 2011

I think it's a compliment. I take it to mean that a younger person has some quality (patience, restraint) that is normally a product of a lifetime of experience. The times I've thought of someone as an "old soul" it was due to a wise-beyond-their-years look in their eyes.
posted by marimeko at 8:23 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Insightfully intelligent, usually with an unspoken "...especially for your age."
posted by tomboko at 8:38 PM on May 2, 2011

As one old soul to another, take it as a compliment! It means you exhibit a wisdom and/or maturity beyond your years.
posted by cecic at 9:03 PM on May 2, 2011

As with most things in life it depends on who says it. The others have already summed up what the compliment means. How much you respect the persons opinions correlate with how much you want to internalize it. Mouths run like rivers.
posted by zephyr_words at 9:59 PM on May 2, 2011

I've always thought of it as a phrase that pervy older men use to convince women far too young for them that they should have sex and/or date.
posted by bardic at 10:53 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

We used to call my little cousin an old soul. She, at about age 4, was really into calmly delivered, wry, observational humor. ("Why does Barbie have pointy tiptoe feet? She couldn't really be an astronaut or a cowgirl or a doctor with tiptoe feet." "Why do we need silverware- isn't that what fingers are for?") She also rarely/ever flipped out. ("There's no rice milk in the house. Well, I guess I will have water, but I would really like to go buy more rice milk in the morning.") A lot of kids, including my own, can be mercurial about things, but even as a preschooler she seemed to have a very measured, mature take on the world.
posted by Leta at 5:37 AM on May 3, 2011

I got this a lot when I was a child. I was very serious, almost grave, mature for my age, reserved, and quietly thoughtful. The people who said it always said it as if it were a positive thing, so I took it as such. And I know for a fact that the people who said it to me (various older relatives in my devoutly catholic family) would not have believed in reincarnation in any form.
posted by katyggls at 6:08 AM on May 3, 2011

Counterpoint: it made me giggle when I learned that, technically, an old soul is one who has failed to break the cycle of reincarnation for longer than most, suggesting they actually have gained LESS wisdom from life. But of course no one means it that way. :)
posted by jinjo at 7:03 AM on May 3, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks for your responses, guys.

Really I suppose I was having trouble with this because I have never been calm or rational - I'm a very passionate, easily distracted, wee bit manic sort of person with lots of highs and lows. I suppose though that people also call me wise and I've definitely gotten "too smart for my own good" way more times than "old soul"... But at any rate this is really selfishly interesting because what you're telling me is that people are describing me and complimenting me on things I feel are not at all what I'm actually like.

I marke Bwithh's as best answer because I think it gets to the root of the problem. Regular use of the phrase is still rather recent, it was never standardized, and explains why I was having trouble thinking it through in a rational sort of way. (Maybe I am more rational than I give myself credit for?)

Thanks for indulging me, Mefites!
posted by Mizu at 5:40 PM on May 3, 2011

Someone once told me my cat had "an old soul" -- in that case I think it was meant that he was comforting to be around, calm, and perhaps wise -- a practical cat, possibly with the wisdom of his previous 8 lives.

I think it's meant in the sense that you have the wisdom that a person might gain as they get older. In some ways this references the concept of previous lives without explicitly doing so, and could well be used by people who have not thought through the implications of what they are saying v.s. their beliefs.
posted by yohko at 6:29 PM on May 3, 2011