I’m 71 and I try to guess how old someone is by looking at them and comparing them to me. But it’s difficult. I have no gray yet and I’m not too wrinkled. But we all age according to out genetics and life experiences, right? So if I see someone with gray or white hair, I assume they’re at least in their 80s, even tho my mom was gray in her 40s.
This came to mind because yesterday, for the first time, I was given a senior discount without asking. Dang, do I look older than I think I do???
Same with kids - I compare my granddaughter to her classmates at age 7, and they’re such a variety of sizes! Am I atypical or are some of you in my camp?
Wow, you’re very lucky. I thought I was doing well only finding my first grey hairs now in my 40s - I’ve got friends who’ve been greying since their 20s and are substantially grey now, and I know guys who started balding in their early 20s, too.
It definitely helps to have a comparison. I’m good at guessing the ages of kids who are similar age to my daughter, and get progressively worse the further away they are in age. There is a variety of sizes, but I think for young age groups especially, there’s a big difference in how mature the face is and that gives it away.
Adults at and above middle age, generally, look a lot younger in 2025 than they did 40-50 years ago.
I’m in my mid-fifties. When I was a kid, people in their forties and (especially) fifties often looked like today’s retirees. And that’s not just memories of seeing through the eyes of a child – family photos confirm it. As do film and television of the 1970s.
The CEO of our company is in his early 60s. He’s let his hair go gray, but if he colored his hair and did nothing else, he could readily pass for mid-40s close up and 30-something from across a room.
Just kidding, I don’t think I’ve ever met you, and if you did, it was back in the era when Dopefests in the DC area were more common. So I have no idea what you look like now.
I too am terrible at gauging people’s ages. A neighbor down the street passed away last fall. I’d figured he was about 75 years old. Nope, he was born in 1959.
I was talking with our HOA’s attorney at a recent meeting. If I didn’t already know her, I’d have figured her for early to mid 40s. But she’s got a 28 year old son, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a child bride.
Yeah - my grandmother was 40 years older than I am. I just found a photo of her when she was 71 - white hair and lots of lines on her face. It’s pretty obvious that I take after Dad’s side of the family - he died at 72 with barely any gray in his hair and I don’t recall any of his sisters (all older than he) being very wrinkly.
Not only have we met - my sweetie and I had lunch with you and your wife eons ago - before you had your son. If I recall, it was a Mediterranean restaurant in Annapolis!
And, to be honest, there are times when I look in the mirror and wonder who that old woman is staring back at me and what is she doing in my bathroom! Really, most of the time I don’t feel old, unless I forget my glasses or I make the mistake of getting down on the floor without planning how to get up again!
One tell is how many teeth are missing First and second grade is prime Tooth Fairy territory!
I absolutely can’t tell the 20-30-somethings. They all look like kids anyway. I live near a Naval Air Station, and I see folks in uniform who should still have a school night curfew! So, yeah, if I witnessed a crime and was asked the age of the perp, best I could offer is “Out of diapers but not on a walker yet.”
I’m HORRIBLE at it. Young kids - I can’t tell a 7 yr old from 10-12. Can’t tell many high schoolers from young 20s. Once someone is obviously past their young 20s, I’ve got no idea if they are 25 or 45. Then, you get in the general category of older folk. Someone could be 50 or 70, and it could be hard to tell.
I’m great at guessing people’s ages: 60 years +/- 60 years. I’ve never had anyone fall outside my 95% error bounds. I could probably tighten it up a little too.
Not a clue. I know that everyone living here is 55+, but that’s it. There’s one woman who I would have sworn was maybe early 70s. Turns out she’s early 90s. I’ve always looked younger than my years, but I think that’s catching up to me. I don’t think I look like I’m pushing 78, but could be mistaken.
Only little kids - after a certain point, I can only tell maybe by clothing and hairstyles. Maybe - because the older I get, the more it feels like styles don’t change with age. There was a time when 40 year olds looked very different from 20 year olds even without wrinkles or gray hair, but that’s no longer really true.
And my own aging definitely doesn’t help - if I see a photo of just my face, I would have a lot of trouble telling you how old I was. Sometimes I can tell because I only had a particular hairstyle during certain years or who else is in the photo but aside from that, I can only narrow it down a little - like if the smile lines are not that deep it’s between 15 and 30.
I’m sure there are many broad factors, but curtailing of smoking in society has to be one of the big ones. General level of background pollution (air/water)? Differences in alcohol consumption at the societal level? Nutrition in some manner or another? Level of dedicated fitness activity among over-40s (again, society-wide)? Paying work generally moving from outdoors to indoors, and from factory floors to offices? Probably plenty more.
I’m very good at it, especially kids because I work among them. There was one huge exception a year ago, though. We were scanning in students by the main entrance, and my fellow tech was talking to what looked like a 7th or 8th grade female student. He asked me a question about access and I replied, “Oh student accounts don’t deal with that.” It turned out she was a new paraprofessional just out of college. Her height and weight was that of a junior high student! I apologized, but she laughed.
I do this a lot, for my own amusement. My method is simple: i guess the maximum age i think the person could be and then the minimum. I average them, and then i guess which is closer to the average, the min or the max. l then average those two figures. I do this process one or two more times, and voila. I have a figure. When i can look it up , as with a celebrity, I’m often very close. And sometimes not, but much better than i do when just guessing.
I’m pretty good with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. After that, forget it. Some people tend to age rapidly after that. We have an elderly neighbor I’ve always tried to help out when I can. She’s a sweet lady who I think may have had some childhood illness that has resulted in her seeming rather frail, though she power walks a couple of times a day. (Like I could do that!) I always assumed she was considerably older than me, and was surprised when I discovered we are the same age.
My wife and I are pushing 73, and neither of us look it, but we certainly don’t look like we did even 20 years ago! Most people might guess we are in our 60s. My parents always looked a good 10 years younger than they were.
I’m very, very good at 20 to 55 years. The variation in both kids and seniors starts to blur the lines too much.
The secret is to look at the back of someone’s hands. If you do it enough (I spent my first career, amongst other things, starting prehospital IVs on people), you can start to see how people’s hands change over time. It’s not like taking care of the back of your hands has ever been a big thing, and they all seem to age at the same rate.
First and second grade is prime Tooth Fairy territory!