OK, I want to know if anyone else has the same experience that I do with something.

I have always looked older than I am. I went through puberty early, grew facial hair young, and have a very mature looking face. Back when I was in high school (young and stupid) my most popular quality was that at age sixteen, I could buy alcohol from the liquor store. (Legal age here in Alberta is eighteen.) Back then, I didn't mind the mature look-- people treated me with respect beyond my years and such. However, now that I am almost twenty-four, it has become a bit of a curse.

The situation that brought this up in my mind also serves as a nice example of what I'm talking about. On Friday evening, my company threw a wind-up party at a local bar. Drinks and dinner were on an open tab, and most of the company went out to have a good time. I was there, not so much for the drinks as for the free dinner and the socializing. Now, it helps to know a bit about my company. We employ about a dozen engineers, of whom I am one of the youngest (possible THE youngest-- I don't know when Leah's birthday is, but it is within a year of mine). We also employ about twenty or twenty-five technicians, all female, ranging in age from twenty-one up to thirty-nine, with the majority towards the younger end of that scale.

At such an event, and knowing my personality as you all do by now (*grin*), you would probably expect that I would spend the evening in the company of ladies my own age. This was not the case. I spent the majority of the evening talking to two ladies aged thirty-seven and thirty-nine. Now, there is nothing wrong with that; they are both wonderful conversationalists, and fun to be around. At one point, a guy one of these ladies knew (not from the company) came in, and he ended up coming over to talk to us for the evening. Before he arrived, we had been talking about ages a bit, and it came up again when he was with us. He was shocked when he learned that I was twenty-three; he said he would have guessed early thirties, closer to his age (thirty-four). He was not the only one to be surprised by my youth. One of our IT people who is forty-two was shocked to learn that I was the same age as her stepson.

(I imagine some people who have seen pictures of me are now saying to themselves that this sounds unreasonable, that I do not look so old. However, pictures of me tend to show me when I am well rested, clean-shaven, well lit, and goofing off. The me that most people see on a day-to-day basis is much older looking.)

Here is the thing: I find that more and more, I do not fit in with people my own age. I tend to have two moods (perhaps a bit bi-polar): one which fits in well with people much younger than myself, and one which fits in better with people much older. I'm not sure exactly why this bothers me, but I'm sure it comes back to my quest for a girlfriend in some way (*grin*). My guess would be that I don't really WANT to date anyone much younger or much older than me-- laws prevent the former and personal tastes prevent both-- and I can't see how I will manage to date someone in between if I can't relate to her (or if she can't relate to me).

Getting back to the original subject, though, I am curious: Does anyone else here have the regular experience of having their age grossly mistaken? If so, does it bother you, and if so, how do you deal with it?

Don "Uses many words to say things which could be said in a few" Monkey