query

[rkt]

if you're "mid-twenties" and you get mistaken for being a pre-teen/teen, is that a good thing or a bad thing or just someone's really fucking dumb?

Comments

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

I'm 52 and occasionally am mistaken for being in my early to mid 30's (which engenders amusing reactions when I point out the eldest of my offspring is 27).

I have to admit, though, that I do have friend who I originally thought was an intellectually precocious 16 or 17 year old who turned out to be a 23 year old grad student, and I've mistaken intellectually precocious 16 year olds for being much older. The best one on record is thinking a 14 year old was 25 - and she's now 22 and she looks pretty much the same as she did at 14.

I suspect that people have a wide set of criteria they use for guessing age, none of which - including looking at a drivers license - are always reliable measures. If you pick up on the wrong criteria for one person, you may be way off, but the same criteria for someone else might be dead on.

Of course, I try to treat everyone who might be over 13 as an adult as much as possible.

(reposted for correcting embarassing grammatical errors)

[rkt.livejournal.com]

maybe the moral of the story is that people suck at guessing other people's ages.