How about this:
– my uncle’s mom this Christmas thought I was a sophomore in high school
– I was carded for my grandmother’s lotto tickets (you have to be 18 to purchase lotto)
– At Sam’s Club, at the free sample tables, you have to be over 12 to get a sample without your parent. I was asked if I was over 12 up until I was a month away from being 18 (and I have big boobs, too! That’s the kicker)
I turned 23 about a week ago.
I’m bassackwards. I turn 24 next week. People who don’t know me take me for 35-40. Of course, as soon as they learn my real age they take me less seriously.
I’m 23 and can pass for a high school student, on looks alone. I usually get a “yeah, right” look when I go to buy alcohol, and sometimes a comment on how the cashier thought I’d come from the high school down the street. The worst thing, however, is when people think I’m the younger sister in my family. (I’m the older, by five years.)
It’s not too bad, though, probably due in some part to my efforts. I speak very clearly and use good manners, and I dress “older” than a high school kid. People who spend a few minutes talking to me can guess my age fairly accurately.
It started when I was 18. Someone said I looked 16, and went on from there. The first time I met my ex’s mother, she chastised her for going out with a 15 year old. I was 25. At 28, I was being carded into R movies.
Then I hit my mid 30s and the diabeties I had had for many years finally started taking it’s toll. Now, I’m 37 and look it. By the time I’m 45, I’ll probably look 70.
I think I look basically my age (31). But when I was in college, I used to go hang out at a local pizza place and play Streetfighter 2. Some of the high school kids there though I was around 35. I have no idea why. They did repeatedly ask me to buy cigarettes for them, which I refused to do.
I have two cousins, sisters, about 4 years apart in age, the older of whom matured in looks MUCH MUCH faster than the younger, who were at somewhat regularly mistaken for mother and daughter.
And I have two married friends who are in their late 30’s, the wife actually being the older of the two, who were at least once mistaken for father and daughter.
I have this same problem. I’m 22 and look about 13-15. It really that big of a deal unless the person is rude about it though. About two years ago, I went out to dinner with my family (parents and nine year old sister), and the waiter let my parents order then said “and what will you be ordering for the kids?” Then later on, he asked them if it was okay for my sister and I to have drink refills. Now that was annoying. Come on, even if I was thirteen, wouldn’t I still be capable of ordering from a menu all by myself like a big kid? :rolleyes:
Based on the fact that my parents and grandparents still look younger than they are, I probably won’t be growin out of this anytime soon, so I just deal with it. My parents get the child-rearing advice too. People whose oldest children are six or seven years younger than I am try to help my parents prepare for my little sister’s fast approaching teenage years. It’s kind of cute really.
I’m 46. People regularly mistake my age for “around 30.” My wife is 31. She gets mistaken for early 20s. Neither of us minds, really. One of the great benefits for now, is that I do not look like her dad. We know another couple with a similar age difference, and he is younger than me but looks at least 10 years older. To see them together is just this side of creepy because he looks so much older than she does.
New people coming into where I work are always dumbstruck to learn that I’ve been working in this business, in some cases, since ten years before they were born.
Once, after I moved down here, I got carded for cigarettes. I was 39.
It drives me nuts. At 20 I was offered a kids meal. I’m told that I’m not old enough to be in University. I get cut in front of in line all of the time.
Nope, I’m pretty sure my bitterness will prevent me from ever enjoying this.
I just cop an attitude. I DO have a fairly deep voice for a woman, much less a small woman, so that helps. I take no grief off anyone - I can whip out an offended “EXCUSE ME!?” faster’n anyone when I need to.
And that University crack wouldn’t bother me at all - I’d just smile and say, “Yes, well, I’m smarter than I am old.”
I am 31, will be 32 in a couple of months and just last week someone thought I was in my early twenties. It’s flattering and annoying at times. Some people don’t take you seriously. My sister hates it, she is 30 and is getting hit on by men who are 10 years younger than her. She wishes to date men her age.
My wife “suffers” from this. When she started teaching, at 29, she was often given hall duty because she blended in with the middle school and high school students. This became more true when she got braces after 30. When we first met, we’d go to bars, and the bouncers always accused me of giving her my sister’s ID. And all the time, she was was self-conscious about being older than me. Even after 5 kids she’d get told that she wasn’t old enough to be a mom.
Since it never bothered her much, I’m not sure when the annoyance goes away, but certainly before 50.
I really don’t get why so many people are annoyed by their youthful looks. As I mentioned, it only bothers me when I’m treated unprofessionally as a result, but that’s only happened a few times; the rest of the time, it’s just a fact of my life. I usually find it amusing. It’s never been a big deal to me, even when I was in my 20s and people thought I was in high school (once I was even carded at a PG-13 movie – PG-13! – when I was 14 years old). If someone says something stupid, or mistakes me for a “kid,” who cares? If it matters, I correct them: usually they’re properly chastised and/or embarrassed, and life goes on. If it doesn’t matter, it’s no big deal and I don’t say anything. I don’t care how old I look. 
Ok, I’ll agree that this aspect has become a little more frustrating over the years. I have always preferred to date men at least my own age, usually a few years older, but the kind of men in their late 30s/early 40s who I’d want to date generally aren’t interested in women in their early 20s – and even once they know my age, it can be hard for them to get past how I look.
I wouldn’t mind being hit on by a few 24-year-olds, though … you know, if they were hot. 
I can’t attest to their hotness, but I do know they’re all Aussies. When I was dating a previous boyfriend, he had a little complex about how young I looked because he thought everyone else looking at us as a couple were thinking he was robbing the cradle, but he was only a couple of years older than me. You soon get over it. I am also petite, so that adds to it.
Wait until you are going on 40, the bitterness will fade.
I, too, was offered Happy Meals as a young adult. I was carded for Rated R movies in my late 20s. I had professional problems in my 20s with people not taking me seriously.
But last week I ran into the liquor store. Got carded (I’m 38 - almost 39). I looked at the clerk and said "OK, but you need to guess my age). 27. He could have been flattering me by guessing young - or he could have been guessing old as I was suprised to be getting carded (the 40ish woman in front of me wasn’t). But he acted genuinely surprised when he saw the year on my license.
My last birthday - at work. Mentioned my age to one of my coworkers. He looked at me, his draw dropped, and he said “The only reason I thought you were 30 was that I know you have a few years of experience, you don’t get to your role without that.”
I’m 21 and quite mature for my age. (Apparently)
I look 14. (Again, apparently)
And that’s how I’m treated.
Fun. :mad:
Gee, we must be related!
I’m 37, but people guess me at 24-26 tops; I got carded two weeks ago - drinking age here is 18. My brothers are 31 and 28: everybody thinks I’m the youngest, even seeing us together (which pisses my 30-yo SIL no end, specially since she spends a load on creams and clothes and I’m at the other end of the beauty-spend spectrum).
So, people put me into this Little Box labeled “girl”. Worse: they usually file me under “nice girl” and add two stickers: “great ass” and “vulnerable”. Of course, that makes it kind of hard to get a job as an Engineer 
since nobody expects a “nice vulnerable girl with a great ass” to have ten years of experience, be able to manage teams of men (I’ve never gotten any crap from “union types”, only from salesmen and anyway I’m allergic to salesmen), know more about computers than the factory’s IT guy, or even be able to read a map/blueprint (I don’t just read them, I’ve been known to draw them).
It also means that many people try to take advantage of me. For example, that censored who tried to get into my pants just after rejecting me for a job, three weeks ago; I mean, how much of an asshole can a man be?
It means that decent guys my own age don’t come on to me because they feel like cradle snatchers, and some guys my own age who did come on to me fled when they realized I was their age - not 10-15 years their junior.
The one positive point is when I’m in a situation when I actually can hit one of those wanna-be abusers with the full force of my wrath and meanness - I do play nice, usually… Usually. MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, God, THAT look in their faces when they know they’ve been beaten and can’t figure out how it happened, now that is FUN.
Excuse me for a minute. Nava places her evil twin back into the closet
I’m very small, and young-looking. I’m 28, but I still get carded for cigarettes.
It’s a real disadvantage in my workplace. I work in a museum, and people seem to assume that a “kid” like me couldn’t possibly know what I’m talking about.
It’s also a bit intimidating when I give tours to groups of 12-year-old school kids, and every single one of them is bigger than I am. But at least they’re more respectful than adults!
I am also young looking and have never looked my age. Also being short and stick like only makes it worse.
For me though, the most difficult years were when I was younger. I have a brother 1 + 1/2 yrs younger than I, being a boy, he was taller and I spent my entire youth being mortally offended that everyone thought I was the youngest of the family. Grrr.
As a teenager it was sheer torture. There is no dignity for a 18yr old woman being hit on by 14 yr old boys. 20 yr old hit on by 16 yr old, and so on for what seemed like years and years, only because it was. Double Grrr.
By the time I was old enough to drink, my friends wouldn’t let me go into a bar with them, or we’d all get carded, I always had to go in as a single, and it wasn’t easy, always, always an ordeal.
By university everyone thought I was a child genius even though I worked two years out of high school before attending, it meant that people brought a whole host of incorrect assumptions to every encounter. Yuck.
When I was a barmaid and had to card others, if they gave me attitude, I would ask, “Do you think it’s easy to guess peoples ages? Then guess mine, your drink is free if you’re right.” Never had to buy a drink!
By the time I was 28 and with my S0 (almost 10 yrs my senior) and had begun to travel the world, on more than one occasion he was mistaken for my Dad. It still makes me laugh to think about it. One fellow was so shocked to hear this was not my Dad he insisted on taking our picture so he could show others. Of course it was in a foreign country, but still, it was amusing.
Now I’m almost 50 and can’t say it’s much of an irritant anymore, once I stopped dating it was no longer the same humiliating episodes one after another. Instead last summer I was in my back yard, in my swimsuit as I’d been in my wading pool (it was stinking hot out), heard the distinct sounds of large construction equipment on my quiet suburban street and tossed on a t shirt over my suit and headed to the front yard to see what was up. (I love to see big equipment, no, not like that you perverts!)
It was indeed a big machine, I forget now what it was doing, something to the manhole covers I think. There was a teenager working on the back of this machine and when he looked up an saw a tanned female body in a bathing suit (covered with a t shirt, but still) he let out a mighty, “Yowza” with a big grin and a wave. Yeah it made my day. And, as you can see, I haven’t forgotten it. Does it make up for all the youthful indignities I suffered? I’m not sure, but it definitely made my day, month, year!
Every one has some cross to bear in life, this one, while indeed irritating, really amounts to not much in the greater scheme of things.
Of course I might feel differently if I was still dating and couldn’t attract the attentions of the right age group, I’m sure it would still sting.