I can’t help but notice that some emn have a distinctive mature look about them as young as 25 while others still retain a boyish look well into their 60’s. It is something I have yet been able to define. Wrinkles don’t define it, baldness, body shape etc. don’t seem to define it either but all contribute some to it.
The impression I get is that the look is most influenced by life experience and attitude but I am not so sure of that either. Has anyone else noticed this or gave it any thought?I kinda think it might be facial shape, proportionality and bone structure.
This goes over some basic points of purely physical attractiveness
Even if a man has none of the physical “man” features below the “confident, politely assertive attitude” overrules everything.
Man (ish)
Sharper angled features
Broader shoulders -
Some indication of muscularity
Some indication of facial fair
deeper voice
(relatively) larger
The way you carry yourself re having a confident, politely assertive attitude
Boy (ish)
More rounded features
More narrow shoulders
Not all that muscular
Smooth face
higher voice
(relatively) smaller
Indecisive more passive, subservient attitude
Not quite wrinkles, but something about some minor sagging of facial tissue, like jowls starting to form, the nose and and around the eyes there some minor slumping. Some people just look young or old though. I had a baby face well into my 30s and almost always had a beard to look older. My wife says I always looked younger than I was until I was in my 40s and then started looking older than I was.
The key distinction between teen and man is the angularity of your face, which is largely a matter of fat.
It’s more noticeable in women than men, but it’s the same thing. If you have a particularly defined facial structure, you’ll probably end up looking older younger, just because it’s enough to swamp out the bonus fat.
If old media are anything to go by, then squinting. lots and lots of squinting.
-_-
I believe it’s brain, or brawn, or the month you were born.
And the same doesn’t hold true for women? (Well, apart from the men and boy part.)
I know plenty of women who completely follow the same traits.
Same is true here. With women it seems to have more to do with style and dress but I do see the same thing to a lesser degree.
I have been able to get served in bars without question since I was 16 and could have passed for late 30s in college. I always wrote it off to growing up poor and working since I was about 8. Living an adult life puts adult looks on your face IMHO. Now on the good side — shaking hands with 60 I can pass for 50 or a bit less. The clock on the wall finally got its face past mine.
Or you could always just get a tattoo.
I can’t define it, but just like obscenity, I know it when I see it.
My husband is a big guy. He has broad-shoulders, and is 6’2, 240lbs. But he has a very boyish face. His face is round, with large eyes, a proportionately small nose, and he has no visible Adam’s Apple. I think he’s very good-looking, but other people tend to call him “cute,” and not so often “handsome.” If it weren’t for DH’s size, he probably would have gotten carded until he was 40 and started to get some gray hair.
Conversely, I have a cousin who is not especially tall, or brawny, but he has a long jaw, narrow eyes, a broad brow ridge, a long nose, and an Adam’s Apple. In spite of being only 5’8 or so, he could walk into a bar without getting carded when he was 18. He is also good-looking, but you wouldn’t call him cute. He’s much more masculine looking from the neck up than my husband.
I have boobs for days. From the front, no one would ever mistake me for a man, but when I had short hair, sometimes I was called “Sir” from the back. I have a triangular shape. I have shoulders that are wider than my hips. My hips are really narrow, and part of the reason I had to have a c-section, probably. I used to lift weights, so my deltoids are built up, but even before that, I had a more mannish sort of proportion. In my 20s and 30s, when I was thinner, I could buy pants in the boys’ section.
So there’s some data points: shoulders wider than hips; Adam’s Apples; brow ridges; proportionately big noses; also bigger hands and feet, although I didn’t mention that earlier; square or rectangular faces, especially square jaws; proportionately small orbital openings-- men don’t have smaller eyes, they have bigger mid-faces, but the overall effect is that women have larger eyes.
It takes many years for the cloud of Axe Cologne to dissipate.
“…And, there was much rejoicing.”
Smile when you say that.
My fathers family would be a good study on this. He had 10 brothers and they all look very similar. The 6 older brothers including my father all grew up on a farm with a very strict and man alcoholic father. They were also all in world war II. Seeing pictures of them in their 20’s they all had the hard man look at a very young age. The 4 younger brothers had migrated to California after their father had passed and gotten college educations and good jobs in business or industrial white collar jobs. They all maintained a youthful look throughout most of their lives. When you see pics of them in their early 30’s they look like kids. I am convinced lifestyle plays a major roll.
Aloha shirts.
Hair, in some places and not in others. That is all.
When I was 18ish I had a boyfriend who was 20ish and whom I was really really attracted to, despite him not being “pretty”. A girlfriend of mine said “he’s not like a ‘dude’; he’s a man”. I totally got what she meant so let me see if I can remember the particulars. He had “manly” hair; some chest hair and a though he was clean shaven his face was just tough enough that it didn’t look like a baby face. He was solid and muscular, but the kind of muscles one gets from living / working, not from sports or the gym (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I’d say he had an overall confidence about him, though he was in no way a tough guy or a jerk. He just had a certain something that portrayed life experience. He dressed perfectly well but never trendy.
Exactly.
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