This actually made my mouth water, in some kind of skeevy Pavlovian response. Lock me up right away. 
Another person saying please don’t call me well-preserved! What am I, jam?
As for the looking young bit…not a thing can be done to help it. I’ve looked younger all my life, but now that I’m 31, I appreciate it finally.
I’ve been telling my boyfriend that for years (He’s 26 but could easily pass for 15). I’m hoping he hits the ‘appreciate it’ point soon.
I do think I’m (at least somewhat) attractive…for a 16 year old. That’s still the problem. There’s absolutely no way for me to be a confident, attractive 22 year old, because I’m not.
I go to a bar and I already know immediately that girls there don’t take me seriously. Whenever I meet a female friend-of-a-friend, they might be a bit flirty, but I can always tell that they look down on me like I’m a child (even though I’m usually OLDER than them). I always get the “sweety” or the “hon” or the various other “little brother” names. I can just FEEL their naturally condescending attitude towards me (much in the way that people always say that women can pick up on desperation).
But I grin and play along, cuz hey, at least they’re talking to me right? Then they go and fuck the guys who look their age.
It’s better to be told “You’re 22! I thought you were 16!” than being told “You’re 24? I thought you were older!”.
I thought once I “grew up”, people would believe me when I said my real age. Instead, they keep insisting I look older. Sigh
I’m always getting the “you CAN’T be 46!” all the time… Most people seem to think I’m in my mid 30’s… Which is sort of how I see myself too… How the heck did I get THIS old, this fast? :eek:
How I feel about how young a guy looks depends on how old he is to begin with. That’s clear as mud, right?
We’re talking about just meeting someone, not someone we already know well, right? Basic first impressions about attractiveness. What I meant above is, I am attracted to younger guys too but if he’s twenty-five and looks twenty, I’d probably write him off as “way too young” from the get-go. If he were closer to my age and looked twenty-five, that’s no big deal because twenty-five isn’t too young. Hell, most people think I’m that old at most anyway. So I guess it depends on how much younger than me he looks.
Maybe you should chat up young-looking college girls 
I sure would have been happy to date me some guys my age who didn’t mind my looking younger… as opposed to meeting guys my age who were interested only so long as they didn’t know I was their age :smack: Now that is yucky.
At the risk of flogging a long-dead horse, there’s your problem. My advice would be to stop going to bars.
If your preferred venue for meeting women is one where people are likely to judge others on superficial impressions, then since you look like a 16 year old, you’re out of luck.
Like the advice columnists have been saying for eons, join groups devoted to your hobbies or interests, and stuff like that. Your best chance is when women have time to get to know you before the question of romance or sex even comes up.
At least at the bar people are going to KNOW I’m over 21 though. Well, most of them. There are some EXTREMELY stupid people my age.
At 44, I get hit on by younger men a lot, but I know I look younger. I wouldn’t find any man attractive, though, sporting a shit-eating grin.
Confidence is attractive.
Cyn—am I a cougar yet?
I don’t know where you live or what the laws are there, but you don’t have to be of drinking age to be admitted to a place that serves alcohol. I don’t know if states that license bars separately from restaurants generally have such stipulations for bars. Suffice it to say that whether someone knows you’re over 21 because you’re inside the bar would depend on their familiarity with such details.
But it doesn’t really matter. Even if, if they stop and think about it, they’d know you must be 21 or older, chances are they won’t. They’ll mentally register you as a kid, and then you’re off their radar.
Me neither. And I got carded regularly until about the age of 40, and it still happens sometimes despite visible grey in my temples.
That is an expression I often wear when I’m feeling confident (or simply amused).