I couldn’t honestly vote, because I have no personal examples in recent enough memory to give better than a WAG. However, if I had to vote based on anecdotal evidence I remember hearing, I could either go for 14 or 13, because I hear that commonly, or I could go for 12 (or possibly younger), because I have heard that often enough to realize it almost certainly must be at least occaisionally (though very rarely) true. Given that I vaguely recall reading a case of a girl of 9 getting pregnant, it seems intuitively true that it can’t be too many years older than that for at least a tiny but significant number to look 18, given that it is less than 5 years between when most girls first become capable of pregnancy, and they hit 18.
The OP said that you said 21. Anyway, I reckon these people are going with very extreme examples. I suppose there is some 11 year old on the planet somewhere who looks 18, but for the most part, I don’t care if you put grown up clothes and make up on a 6th grader, there ain’t no way in hell I’m mistaking the thing for a college freshman.
“I can’t believe *anyone *has *ever *had *any *experience or data that in any way contradicts my own. What complete bullshit.”
Why don’t you go hang out with Starving Artist? I bet you guys get along great these days.
I voted 14 (and it looks like I am in the majority) because I was a bartender back in Uni and I was once almost taken in by a guy with a fake ID who looked 18 but was 14.
He had more facial hair than I did (or do), and acted old enough.
Of course, this was back in the sane days when you could purchase alcoholic beverages at the age of 18.
My grandchildren looked a lot older than they were when they were in their mid-teens, but honestly there isn’t a special sign that appears when you make it to 18.
So, instead, you think the waitress thought giving a minor jello shots was A OKAY?
Back when I rotated through peds endocrine, I met a number of patients with precocious puberty (signs of puberty before age 8 in girls and 9 in boys) , and they ended up looking 18 or older by the time they were 11 or so. Very confusing for all involved. Some have finished their growth by the time they’re 10, which usually doesn’t happen until age 18 or later.
And frankly with more and more females hitting menarchy at age 10 and 11, there are a significant number of them who look older than your ‘typical’ 18 year old by the time they’re 14 or 15.
So, no Dio, it’s not a crock. Your experience is not universal.
I went to the local Police to get an ID card. The two cops on duty did not even ask for my Birth Cert. I gave them my info with the wrong birth year. No problems using it for ten years. I was 14 when I got it. The cops never blinked when it said I was five years older than I was. Was there just stupid cops in my town or did I look five years older than I was?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s partly due to the overlap between developmental cues, such as waist to hip ratio and bust size, and sexual attraction. I’m sure memory bias is some part of it however, and as others have said, it’s not always the case.
Interesting thread, as I was just thinking yesterday of a portrait my mother had done of me one summer. I was wearing a particular top that I’d worn the week before and it was in wearing that top I began to understand that I wasn’t a kid anymore.
It wasn’t at all revealing but it did highlight my features and colouring and without exception made grown men not only pay attention to me, but actually converse with me as an adult and a “female of interest”.
I was twelve at the time and only in retrospect can I assure you they were not pedophile types and their conversations were definitely appropriate for an 18 - 21 year-old woman. It felt decidedly icky at the time - but after that summer it was never the same . . .
Well yeah, guys start looking at you the moment you sprout tits. Doesn’t mean they’re mistaking you for an 18 year old.
Of course not.
Lazy cops.
I teach in a very large school, with students up to age 18 (19 if they have to come back and retake their A levels). There’s no way of knowing all the kids in that school - there are just too many. The ones I don’t know, by and large, it’s impossible for me to tell what year most of them are in. Even in their uniforms, they look mostly older than they are. I voted 13, since I have a boy in my year nine class (aged 13) who is about six foot, broad-shouldered, and sports a rather dashing moustache. He’s not alone. The girls look even older, especially when they’re wearing make up. I also think race/ethnicity can make a difference. The white kids I teach tend to look a lot, lot younger.
So is Dio’s position is that anyone who has actually experienced such a situation is delusional? :dubious:
Well, so be it, then my own particular delusional episodes involve running into a small number of people – notice, I recognize these are outliers – who are chronologically early adolescents in the low teens (even as low as 12 in one case), who can physically look indistinguishable from some young adults in their late teens or early 20s … and vice versa, as long as you limit yourself to what they **look **like.
HOWEVER begin listening to the conversation and observing the actions, and it’s tougher to maintain the fiction.
***That ***is why it’s up to you after you pass your own adolescence and become allegedly a responsible adult, to make sure you know who you’re hitting on, not just say “oooh, look, hottie!” and hook up first and ask questions later.
**Booker57’s **case OTOH was really lazy cops, even if you do look grown up they’re supposed to do some due dilligence.
Well the question here is can they. I suppose it is possible that they can. But do they? Almost always, no.
Then what do you think?
I think about 11, maybe a few younger than that. There are some HUGE kids, both weight and height, in 6th grade (11 years old or so.)
That she gave jello shots to a girl she knew was probably a minor. She probably didn’t think she was as young as 11, but she probably didn’t think she was 21.
This. I did this a number of times.
My wife was 23 when I met her family. Her kid sister was equally beautiful, and I assumed she was just getting into college. Turns out there was more of an age gap than I knew: she was 14 or 15
My first real serious college girlfriend was indistinguishable on stage from the rest of her acapella ensemble (nothing like a chick singing bass, right? Right? Guys?) and I didn’t find out until her birthday that she was on some kind of accelerated Doogie Howser thing and was just turning 16–I’d assumed she was the typical 18-19yr old frosh.
But how do you tell those youngsters that look older but sound their age from oldsters that look their age but sound young?
Or are we to not fuck people of age that sound stupid as well?