For me, while I look like I'm around 25, I'm only 17 and almost 18. I'm a second-year in college, however, so everyone else is around 20. As a guy, that puts me in a pretty weird situation with women. When women hear how young I am, they lose interest in me pretty quickly. Hell, it happens with guys, too. People respect you much less when you're younger than them, and for that reason I tend to avoid the topic of my age most of the time.
Thankfully I'm 18 now, so I can almost get away with saying I'm no longer a teenager. I know it's eighteen but I'm a legal adult now so shut up about it.
Congrats, for the next 17 years you will be part of one of the most important age groups in the US. Huge companies will spend billions of dollars trying to figure out what appeals to people your age.
Enjoy it, because after that's over it will be another 30 years before anyone cares what you have to say. At that point, very powerful people will spend billions of dollars trying to get people your age to vote for them.
My only thing with age, personally, is that people have a hard time determining my proper age (usually assuming I'm older), because my family matures quickly, then maintains the same appearance for like thirty years, and that, having grown up in that atmosphere, I cannot judge someone's age visually at ALL.
Which makes it nigh-impossible to flirt in public because "oh shit what if she's just a teenager."
Just the other day I saw a girl walking down the street, and I thought "Man what's a 12 year old doing wandering in downtown all by herself."
I turned 21 this past Sunday. I've gone into bars/liquor stores several times since then, and have not been carded the majority of times. And I'm a pretty young-looking guy (without my sideburns, I'd probably pass for 18)
I'm fairly sure it's not so much to do with my appearance but more to do with the fact that since I know what I'm doing is perfectly legal, I don't have any of the cautious nervousness that someone underage might have. Acting older seems to have gotten me much further than actually appearing so.
I've also got no nervousness whatsoever about buying liquor, but apparently I've still got a bit of a babyface so I get carded often.
Hell, a month ago someone, very briefly, asked if I was 17(I'm 25). To be fair, she didn't know who I was and though there was supposed to be a 17 year old on the bus, but God, still.
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Pardon me if someone has already said something similar:
I feel people are reluctant to reveal their age, because part of the 'grandeur' of the internet is how it can bring down such barriers and connect people regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, background, etc. etc. etc . . . In real life, casually chatting with someone older or younger can raise eyebrows and suspicions, no matter how innocent. Or people feel that someone outside the age-group will have nothing in common with them. As such, IRL, people band with people near their age. Yes, mentally a person can hold their own against some time-jaded group, but that whole 'first-impression' thing tends to prevent such things unless your appearance is no longer an indicator of your age and one is more easily accepted because you look like a peer. To ask something such as age is like bringing those barriers up again. Personally, I've always held that reluctance, because when no one knew my age, I wouldn't be questioned as much. When it was known, people would go on guard or not take me as seriously.
This is true. I used to post on a few usenet boards when i was 16-17 or so, and got taken a lot more seriously when people didn't know my age. Its a similar effect to being a known female, being out as very young in a serious environment. As in, you get a little more authority in a few select topics so long as you don't say anything too radical, but on everything else you get dismissed a lot more. I can definitely understand staying anonymous on both axes, I kind of wish I hadn't blown it here. Its really not worth being able to post more freely in the goddamn fashion thread
If people didn't know you were female though, how would we get hilarious and depressing threads and PMs to laugh about in [chat]?
When IRL you still get blown over for your age and being female, and when it's hard to gauge how a certain group via the internet will take you for those things, it's worth not having those certain hilarious/deppresing thread ;D
And while I wont quote/snip the whole post, Incenjucar made several valid points. You get a sticker for that.
Pardon me if someone has already said something similar:
I feel people are reluctant to reveal their age, because part of the 'grandeur' of the internet is how it can bring down such barriers and connect people regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, background, etc. etc. etc . . . In real life, casually chatting with someone older or younger can raise eyebrows and suspicions, no matter how innocent. Or people feel that someone outside the age-group will have nothing in common with them. As such, IRL, people band with people near their age. Yes, mentally a person can hold their own against some time-jaded group, but that whole 'first-impression' thing tends to prevent such things unless your appearance is no longer an indicator of your age and one is more easily accepted because you look like a peer. To ask something such as age is like bringing those barriers up again. Personally, I've always held that reluctance, because when no one knew my age, I wouldn't be questioned as much. When it was known, people would go on guard or not take me as seriously.
This is true. I used to post on a few usenet boards when i was 16-17 or so, and got taken a lot more seriously when people didn't know my age. Its a similar effect to being a known female, being out as very young in a serious environment. As in, you get a little more authority in a few select topics so long as you don't say anything too radical, but on everything else you get dismissed a lot more. I can definitely understand staying anonymous on both axes, I kind of wish I hadn't blown it here. Its really not worth being able to post more freely in the goddamn fashion thread
I hid my age quite well when I posted in the serious section of my EQ server messageboard (it's still alive, kicking, and filled with many morons). On birthdays I invited people to guess, and never gave the answer; most guessed 30+, which gave me at least a decade. I eventually let it known how young I was, just before abandoning the place for good. It was a board largely filled with 30+ posters anyway, as EQ seemed to attract and hold the attention of more mature gamers.
Here, age doesn't seem to hold as much of a stigma, though some of the younger posters seem to make a point of saying "Well I'm only a teenager but I think..."
I might be the only one to notice this and as such, it's probably nothing.
I have noticed that when many people would ask my age, their attitude towards me would suddenly significantly change. A coworker might suddenly stop treating me with quite as much respect; a girl I was talking to at a party might suddenly lose interest while somebody else who overheard the conversation might suddenly gain interest; etc. Nobody likes to feel as though attitudes towards them are contingent upon their particular demographic categorization, whether the relevant characteristic is age or sex or race or religion. I recognize that to a certain degree it is unavoidable - being a different age does make you a different person, whether you like it or not - but it's still an unpleasant reminder that sometimes your personality and skills take a back seat to your census statistics.
I guess it's just one of those annoying little heuristic things, but I don't see it as completely negative. There is so much you can assume about a person's life if you know that they're 21 as opposed to 29. It's not completely about personality versus census data, it's about how we relate to people with different degrees of life experience to us.
Of all the things people are going to judge me on, my age seems one of the closest to something that's actually pertinent to any relationship between us. I figure that'll probably change a fair bit as I get older though.
I like to tell people my age - as does my housemate - as we're always assumed to be much younger than we are. So I have had the opposite experience to Feral - being treated like shit/a youngster until I can prove I'm actually much older.
My housemate (aged 24) who has recently bought a house drove to the hardware store last weekend and was refused sale of a stanley knife (she didn't have her driver's license on her as it's off at the DMV having the address changed). You have to be 16 to buy a knife here. (17 to drive). It was pretty embarrassing for her to have to ask her friend to drive down and buy it on her behalf. She required it for decorating the new house, by the way
Likewise, when I tried to buy an alcoholic drink in the US, the bartender didn't even bother to ask me for ID - she just automatically gave me the non-alcoholic version. That was pretty insulting, to be honest; it was as if she had assumed I was lying. I wasn't even given a chance to prove myself! I had two forms of ID on me, too.
If I say I work full time, people assume that I'm too young to have gone to university; again, not exactly very pleasant because it's taken to mean that I wasn't clever enough to have gone to university (when I graduated three years ago).
I'm more than old enough to have legally married and have a five year old child, but I'm rather dreading getting married/having children as it's going to get me some very strange looks! My mother had her first two children at ages 27 and 29; she had one woman say to her sister, 'oh, I do feel sorry for your sister, being a teenage mother like that.' In a way it's flattering but also irritating! My aunt had children in her very late thirties, and was once stopped in a line by a lady and lectured on how to raise her children. The lady kept saying 'when you're my age you'll know...' and eventually my aunt asked the lady how old she was. Surprise, they were both the same age.
That's just a few examples of how assumed age can be problematic.
I'm 24 and I don't drive. I hate hate hate being continually carded when I go to buy smokes since I've been legally able to for 6 years now, and with the lack of driver's license I have no photographic proof of my age. I also absolutely hate it when people assume that my husband is my boyfriend, and I'm renting instead of owning my house. It just gets so frustrating at times.
I hate it when people ask for my age when I apply for positions with their companies and I don't get the job because I'm over 18 and they'd have to pay me more.
Often, all of that just makes me feel like I'm not old enough for some things even though I'm technically legal and too old for other things. Just makes you want to punch people......wish you could get away with that sometimes.
They don't have non driver's ID cards there? You can get them in just about any state here.
Technically we do, but we have to get them from licensing centres, which are usually in the middle of industrial areas and take a while to get to via public transport so I never bothered. However, I've finally got my learner's permit so by the end of the year, I'll be able to show up those carding bastards *shakes fist* :P
Back home in England, I never really had a problem with telling anyone my age.. I accepted that if they were asking, they probably had a reason for it (be it something I was buying, or somewhere I wanted to be, or just curious).
Since moving to Aus and trying to find a job, I've come to dread the question "how old are you?" If I'm trying to buy something, no problem, since I carry my passport around with me alot of the time. However, while trying to get a job, its common here for employers to seek out people between 16 and 20, because they are permitted to pay them a lower minimum wage than people over 20.. the moment I hear that question, I know that I'm not going to get the job because I'm 26.
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Congrats, for the next 17 years you will be part of one of the most important age groups in the US. Huge companies will spend billions of dollars trying to figure out what appeals to people your age.
Enjoy it, because after that's over it will be another 30 years before anyone cares what you have to say. At that point, very powerful people will spend billions of dollars trying to get people your age to vote for them.
Which makes it nigh-impossible to flirt in public because "oh shit what if she's just a teenager."
Just the other day I saw a girl walking down the street, and I thought "Man what's a 12 year old doing wandering in downtown all by herself."
Then I noticed her puff a cigarette.
I don't think that's just you - the number of 14-year-old girls today that look 19+ is positively scary.
My general rule of thumb is that if they look about 25, they're out of high school.
Gods, especially the people with Asian Ancestry.
Is she thirteen or is she thirty?
I'm fairly sure it's not so much to do with my appearance but more to do with the fact that since I know what I'm doing is perfectly legal, I don't have any of the cautious nervousness that someone underage might have. Acting older seems to have gotten me much further than actually appearing so.
Hell, a month ago someone, very briefly, asked if I was 17(I'm 25). To be fair, she didn't know who I was and though there was supposed to be a 17 year old on the bus, but God, still.
When IRL you still get blown over for your age and being female, and when it's hard to gauge how a certain group via the internet will take you for those things, it's worth not having those certain hilarious/deppresing thread ;D
And while I wont quote/snip the whole post, Incenjucar made several valid points. You get a sticker for that.
I hid my age quite well when I posted in the serious section of my EQ server messageboard (it's still alive, kicking, and filled with many morons). On birthdays I invited people to guess, and never gave the answer; most guessed 30+, which gave me at least a decade. I eventually let it known how young I was, just before abandoning the place for good. It was a board largely filled with 30+ posters anyway, as EQ seemed to attract and hold the attention of more mature gamers.
Here, age doesn't seem to hold as much of a stigma, though some of the younger posters seem to make a point of saying "Well I'm only a teenager but I think..."
I might be the only one to notice this and as such, it's probably nothing.
I guess it's just one of those annoying little heuristic things, but I don't see it as completely negative. There is so much you can assume about a person's life if you know that they're 21 as opposed to 29. It's not completely about personality versus census data, it's about how we relate to people with different degrees of life experience to us.
Of all the things people are going to judge me on, my age seems one of the closest to something that's actually pertinent to any relationship between us. I figure that'll probably change a fair bit as I get older though.
My housemate (aged 24) who has recently bought a house drove to the hardware store last weekend and was refused sale of a stanley knife (she didn't have her driver's license on her as it's off at the DMV having the address changed). You have to be 16 to buy a knife here. (17 to drive). It was pretty embarrassing for her to have to ask her friend to drive down and buy it on her behalf. She required it for decorating the new house, by the way
Likewise, when I tried to buy an alcoholic drink in the US, the bartender didn't even bother to ask me for ID - she just automatically gave me the non-alcoholic version. That was pretty insulting, to be honest; it was as if she had assumed I was lying. I wasn't even given a chance to prove myself! I had two forms of ID on me, too.
If I say I work full time, people assume that I'm too young to have gone to university; again, not exactly very pleasant because it's taken to mean that I wasn't clever enough to have gone to university (when I graduated three years ago).
I'm more than old enough to have legally married and have a five year old child, but I'm rather dreading getting married/having children as it's going to get me some very strange looks! My mother had her first two children at ages 27 and 29; she had one woman say to her sister, 'oh, I do feel sorry for your sister, being a teenage mother like that.' In a way it's flattering but also irritating! My aunt had children in her very late thirties, and was once stopped in a line by a lady and lectured on how to raise her children. The lady kept saying 'when you're my age you'll know...' and eventually my aunt asked the lady how old she was. Surprise, they were both the same age.
That's just a few examples of how assumed age can be problematic.
I hate it when people ask for my age when I apply for positions with their companies and I don't get the job because I'm over 18 and they'd have to pay me more.
Often, all of that just makes me feel like I'm not old enough for some things even though I'm technically legal and too old for other things. Just makes you want to punch people......wish you could get away with that sometimes.
Technically we do, but we have to get them from licensing centres, which are usually in the middle of industrial areas and take a while to get to via public transport so I never bothered. However, I've finally got my learner's permit so by the end of the year, I'll be able to show up those carding bastards *shakes fist* :P
Since moving to Aus and trying to find a job, I've come to dread the question "how old are you?" If I'm trying to buy something, no problem, since I carry my passport around with me alot of the time. However, while trying to get a job, its common here for employers to seek out people between 16 and 20, because they are permitted to pay them a lower minimum wage than people over 20.. the moment I hear that question, I know that I'm not going to get the job because I'm 26.