When I was a freshman in high school I was mistaken by someone to be a freshman in college. Someone I was talking with asked what year I was in school and I said freshman. He replied “Oh, in college?”
I thought that was odd because most people mistake me for being a year or so younger than I am. Now I’m a sophomore in college and for some reason I get mistaken for a freshman by people I’ve never met before.
Female, currently 28 years old (29 next month, if it matters).
I always get carded for alcohol, but not often for cigarettes. In kiddie clothes and without makeup, I really don’t look much more than 16. (However, when I was 16, most people thought I was in my mid-to-late twenties.) Nobody’s ever thought I was older than 30. But I guess that will start to change soon.
The funny thing is, I really look almost exactly the same right now as I did when I started high school. If I teased my bangs up and gave myself a bad perm, I could take an exact copy of my yearbook picture.
I’m going to be 22 next month. Most people seem to think I look younger; like 16. I can’t remember any particular time that I found out someone thought I was older than I am.
I’m a female, 18. Without make up and dressed casually I can be 14 - I nearly always get ID’d for cigarettes and alcohol if it’s not a local shop, and I frequently get wolf whistled at by secondary school boys.
The oldest anyone’s ever guessed my age at was 23, but I think they were either blind or lying; I know I’ve got a babyface, but I guess I’ll appreciate it later!
I’m 39 (barely 39 OK? ) Up untill maybe 4 or 5 years ago, most people assumed I was around 21. The last few years have started to show a little bit. In the last 4 years I’ve been divorced, without a place of my own, remarried, and now the father of a two a two year old boy and another on the way in three months. Age is starting to catch up with me. My beard comes in gray but not the hair on my head, and I’m starting to get the wrinkles around my eyes, but most people still think I’m under thirty.
I don’t know how I managed to stay so young looking. From the time I was 12 till I was about 24 I was doing more drugs than Keith Richards, well minus the heroin, but with more inhalants, and I remained a hardcore pothead for many years after that, so in theory I should look pretty rough by now. Diet has nothing to do with it either. I pretty much live on Coffee, Slim Jims, pizza, Nesquick and cigarettes so I SHOULD be lardassed heart attack waiting to happen, but I’ve always hovered around 165 lbs.
Thing is, think about middle aged people you know. One day, they look the same as they always have, and then the next time you see them, they look twenty years older. I get depressed whenever I see new pictures of old bands. Like the guys in The Clash, or the Sex Pistols, or anybody in the late 70/s early 80s punk scene. These are guys not much older then myself, and they’re all looking grandfatherly. Those guys all aged overnight. The Pistols didn’t look that bad when they first got back together, but now? Fuck.
See there’s this big brick wall hanging over all of our heads. One day, you’re just walking around minding your own business and BAM the brick wall falls on you, and the next thing you know, you’re wearing pants that pull up to your armpits, worrying about your prostate and driving 35 in a 65MPH zone.
I’ve bummed myself out now. I’m gonna put out this smoke and go get some Nesquick and Slim Jims (Ha! I bought 6 25 count cans of 'em the other day). That’ll cheer me up. Yeah…
34, male. The early-to-mid-20’s guys who sit around me at work assumed I was one of them.
The funniest incident occurred when I was 29:
In a discussion about shoe quality, I said the shoes I was wearing had been with me for 12 years. A college-age classmate looked at my size-13 running shoes and said “Your feet were THAT big when you were EIGHT!?” 
Currently 18.
Been assumed to be abou 12. 
Oldest was 20. I was flattered.
Female, really 22. Folks constantly assume I’m 14 or 15. The other day, someone asked me at work if my mother was in, assuming I just must be sitting at the desk for her for a few minutes. I can see folks having a dilemma about whether or not to ask for other ID when I purchase alcohol, and they really squint and give my license a good hard look.
About half the time, folks think I should be really flattered that they thought I look so young, and that I should take it as a compliment. Now, I know many people want to look younger, but I don’t think most of them have 14 as the target age in mind. Being “baby-faced” is really not that great, and looking 14 means I have to really work to get more respect than is normally given to 14 year olds.
The oldest someone thought I was in the last year was 40. The guesser was ten years old, though, so she may not be a reliable indicator of how old I appear to be.
Depending on how diligent the person was and the rules of your city or county, that wasn’t a compliment. When I worked at a convenience store, you were supposed to ask for ID from anyone that looked younger than 40. I pissed off more people than I pleased by asking for identification.
Myself, I’m male and 22. I don’t know if I’ve recently been mistaken for much younger or older but I generally look a bit younger than I am. When I was eighteen and working retail, some people used to ask me if I was old enough to be working there and the age limit was 15.
Considering the scraggly beard I have right now, I am guessing most would put me at around my age though.
Male, 64. People always claim to be surprised when they learn my age—usually they say I look to be mid-forties. I’m totally gray but mostly wrinkle free. I was routinely carded until I was in my mid thirties. I don’t remember ever being guessed to be older than my actual age.
I’m 33. I got mistaken for 20 by a pair of extremely dumb teenage boys who tried to pick me up. They were so stupid that I think it might have been more a problem understanding what numbers mean than not knowing what 33 year old is supposed to look like.
On the other hand, a lady in her 50s said something about “our generation” and started talking about Vietnam to me the other day. Maybe when she said “our” she meant “me and all the other people of my generation,” but I’m really not even sure!! I think part of it might be that when she thinks of herself, she thinks she looks 35, so really, when she sees me she thinks we are the same age. I’m just not sure. Either way, I felt kind of weird about that.
I think for the most part I look 33 though. When I see a photo of myself I look 33. When I look in the mirror I look all different ages depending on how recently I’ve dusted the mirror. 
I’m 32, but a lot of people have said that I look older. Mostly because of the beard and mustache (with some noticeable white in them), and because the people making the comments most often are looking at me wearing my minister’s robes.
There’s also a matter of where I am. You know the tendency for caucasians to think asians look younger than they really are? It works the other way, too.
Hmmm I looked for a link but couldn’t find one. The concept is really simple though…let’s say your an actor, you might be 14 going out for a part as a 10 year old, or 25 and playing a teenager, or 30 playing a college student.
Most people particularly women can dress younger and look like a high school or college student sometimes all the way up into the mid 30’s.
Basically what I got was that it’s good for actors to look younger because they can always use special make-up to look older.
I was about 20 when I went for a buffet dinner.
The buffet had 2 prices ranges; kids (under 12) and adults.
The waitress looked at me and in that annoyingly-sugar-sweet voice (usually reserved for toddlers), said, “You look like you’ll be having the kids buffet, yes-you-do.”
:eek:
Thanks. I still don’t know what my TV age is though!
On a side note, one thing that used to absolutely demoralize me as a late-blooming teenager was to see 25 year-olds playing guys my age on TV. I didn’t look anything like Vinnie Barbarino when I was 17. I reckon it’s a little like real women feel when they see some chickie with 38DDs and a 22 inch waist on a magazine cover.
Female, and I’ll be 40 next month. I get carded for alcohol routinely, but as someone else mentioned, retailers, bartenders and servers are pretty much required to card anyone who looks like they might be under 40 - so on those rare occasions I DON’T get carded, I’m mildly offended!
People who are sincerely guessing my age usually end up figuring me to be somewhere in my mid-twenties - I think the oldest real guess was 35, and the guesser had been talking to me about old movies, so he had a frame of reference. The youngest guess was when I was visiting my daughter’s high school for a conference and was questioned by a hall monitor who thought I was a new student. The oldest I’ve been guessed was when I was at a shop that offers a 10% discount to anyone over 55, and the clerk asked me if I qualified for the senior discount.
If I were a film actor, I could probably get away with playing 20-somethings. On stage, I bet I could play younger, because I’m short and tiny.
Female. I’m very tall, and I cough developed early, so as a child I was routinely thought to be 3 or 4 years older then I actually was (for instance, I easily passed myself off as a 16 year old when I was 12, and could usually buy a beer without being carded by 18 or 19). At some point I apparently caught up to myself, and then passed myself, as I’ve received no less then three shocked looks in the past six months when I’ve told people that I’m 28 (apparently I look 23 or 24). Of course, I work with a lot of 22 and 23 year olds, so that might be skewing their perceptions.
Female, 20. If I’m wearing one of my professional outfits (which I usually am) and makeup, I get mistaken for 23-24 regularly. Last night, when I had my hair pulled into pigtails because it was annoying me, no makeup, and dressed casually, my roommate claimed that I looked about 15. It didn’t help that she had just put the bows we removed from our Christmas tree in my hair.
Apparently, I look younger without my glasses, but damned if I know. Without my glasses, everything (including my reflection) is basically a colored blur.
I’ve never heard the term “TV age” before, but I’ve always thought of it as my “stage age:” my theatre resume includes both my actual age and the age range I can play. Same thing, different mediums.
I am a 33-year-old female, and am frequently mistaken for being in my early 20s. I’m in graduate school, and I am not surprised when people on campus think that I’m an undergrad (I know that context often has a lot to do with how old people seem to be). I am still surprised, however, when it happens at work, or when I’m out with people 10 years older than me, etc.
22-23 was the youngest I’d been mistaken for until 4 months ago: I emceed the children’s stage at my town’s summer festival, and found out at the end of the weekend that the woman in charge of my area thought that I was 18 the whole time. 18! That’s almost half my age! The look on her face when I told her I was in my 30s was priceless (stupid condescending woman).
I have never been mistaken for older than my age. It’s extremely rare for anyone to guess my age correctly (the oldest I get is mid-to-late 20s), but it happened a couple months ago: I went to check out a local open mike night, and got carded (natch) when I ordered a beer. The chick who carded me was floored when she saw my real age, and called another bartender over and said to her, “Hey, how old do you think she is?” The other woman guessed 33, right on the nose!
I started a rant on this very subject a few weeks ago.
I’m 27. People more frequently guess that my brother (21) and I are twins than come within 3 years of correctly guessing my age. So in TV years I’m probably about Felicity’s classmates’ age. Oh hell, I’d probably fit in as a high school student on One Tree Hill for that matter.
The last time I was mistaken for being older than I really was, was as an infant. People wonder if big babies (22" and 8lbs 6oz, which is sizable for a girl) become big adults? Nope, I’m 5’3"…I went from being a big baby to small for my age by the time I was three.