We all have that one friend that always look 15 years younger or older than their actual age, or maybe you're one of those people. and I can bet you a million dollars that we all have faced plenty of unique problems dealing with the fact that we don't really look our age. Those set of unique problems are espeically bad for us if a change of wardrobe and makeup can't even fix the way we look.
I'm actually one of those people, and my situation is a pretty weird one sometimes.
I was a very young kid who used to look older than my actual age. Hell, I even hit puberty at a very young age (9 years old)... which served to kind of stunt my growth a little bit once my body decided that it had grown up enough. So for a while there I looked much older than the rest of my classmates... It was only when I entered high school and then college that I started to look much younger than everyone else.
So I experienced what it was like to be treated differently just because you looked older, and THEN looking younger compared to other people your own age.
People who hasn't faced those unique problems at all tend to dismiss the notion that there could even be a problem with not looking our age... always so quick to point out the perks of looking decades younger or older than our actual age.
Yes, there are perks that sometimes makes up for looking too old or too young for your actual age. But here is a list of why it isn't always all rainbows and sunshine....
1. Your dating/sex life majorly sucks big-time, regardless of your age.
It doesn't matter if you're a teenage or an adult, if you look too old or too young for your age, you're going to run into problems that other people simply don't have and will never have experienced at all.
If you're too young-looking, you basically worry that any person you attract are potential perverts. I experienced this as an adult. When I was 23 years old, I looked like I was 14 years old... not even kidding here. at 30 years old now, I now look like I'm 16... which is kind of an improvement? I cannot wait for the day where I finally look like I'm 23 years old!
But that's the sort of thing that's hard to ignore while on a date... I've had too many guys comment on the fact that I'm basically legal jail-bait.
The decent guys tend to avoid me because of this, citing the fact that they wouldn't feel very comfortable dating somebody who looked majorly underage even though I had the legal documentation to prove that I was in fact an adult. That, and they don't want society to start questioning whenever they're a pervert or not.
The really skevvy guys on the other hand... they totally dig the fact that I look underage... because it fill fulls all their sexy Lolita fantasies without getting them into legal trouble. they had an real talent for making me feel REALLY dirty (and not in the good way) within seconds of meeting them.
Yeah, that's a really good impression on the first date... telling your date that you've always fantasized about having sex with underage teenagers. (rolls eyes)
I was actually so grateful to finally meet a guy who had the same problem as I did... that way, we were two adults who happened to look like teenagers out on a date together. of course we had problems feeling the sexual attraction to each other at first, because hey... we normally didn't go for teenagers or people who look like teenagers. But we bonded over the unique problems we had with dating people... so we were able to overcome that and find a sexual attraction to something about each other instead of what was on the outside. (if that even makes sense?)
Here's the really ironic part-- I had the total opposite problem as an teenager.
As I mentioned earlier, I hit puberty too early for my age (9 years old) and as an result for a brief time in my development I looked much older than my actual age compared to the kids my age. when 12 year old girls was still flat-chested, I was the one sporting C-cup bras. It was made even weirder by the fact that I still held on to playing with my dolls until I was 13, when most 12 year old girls had already started to stop.
It's like, why would nature give early puberty to somebody who were slow on the uptake when it came to growing up? Sometimes I think Nature had a very twisted sense of humor.
Anyhow... this also meant that when I wanted to "test the waters" in terms of dating, parents started to treat me as some sort of predatory pervert who wanted to date their underage sons despite the fact that I was actually the same age as their son was. sometimes younger than their son by a year!
Well, mostly the fathers were very approving and proud that their sons managed to catch themselves a hot, older-looking girlfriend. But the mothers had the total opposite reaction... they seemed to think that because I had large breasts for my age, amongst other things, that I would be sexually promiscuous and therefore ruin their son's innocence forever in many ways. When in reality I would continue to be a virgin until my college years. So those mothers would do their damned best to chase me away, and break us up in every way they could think of.
I imagine that for people who continue to look older than they really are, they basically have to date people much older than themselves. Otherwise they get interrogated by suspicious parents who just simply cannot believe that you're actually the same age as their darling child. (even if that said child is an adult herself/himself).
However, for me as a teenager... dating people older than me was not a option at all... because otherwise I would be getting too many people into trouble and I couldn't have that on my conscience. So I was basically a date-less loser until college.
2. It's an total disadvantage in the workplace, because people refuse to take you seriously at all.
Sometimes business suits and makeup do nothing at all, if you're attempting to actually look your age.
If you're younger than you look, you end up coming off like a little kid pretending to be an adult... and that's a very bad thing. Especially in the world of Business!
It doesn't matter if you're actually 10 years senior to the 20-year-old newbie who just joined the staff... that newbie is going to look at you and think: "Inexperienced, fresh-faced little kid."
Basically, nobody will ever take you seriously and you have to fight twice as hard than other people your age in order to be taken seriously.
Being mistaken as younger than you are can lead to job offers withheld, promotions lost and even rivalries with colleagues. Or you can turn it into an asset that leaves your superiors and coworkers wondering how you learned so much so soon.
This is where looking older than your age has an advantage over looking younger than your years. That is, unless you look like you're 50 years old when you're actually 30... then you get all the comments about how it's time for you to retire I guess.
3. It's very hard to shop for clothes that you want.
Basically, if you're a petite, very young-looking 30 year old then the only clothes that will fit you, is in the teenage section of any clothing store. Which serves to make you look even more of a teenager, which should be impossible. Adult clothes doesn't really fit you right at all... it just makes you look like a young teenager pretending to be an adult.
you basically have to go to a tailor to get adult clothes that actually fit you right, and makes an decent attempt at making you actually look your own age. and that s#!t costs a lot of money.
And I imagine that people who look older has similar problems... when buying clothes directed at people their own age, they probably look like elderly people trying too hard to look hip and cool.
So basically... It's a no-win situation.
4. It makes a huge negative impact on your social life in many ways besides dating and the workplace.
Friends can only take so much, especially when it comes to being constantly stopped by the police or other people because they're being suspected of corrupting a minor. You know, giving a minor beer, etc..... Which actually have happened simply just because I was hanging out with them at places like bars, etc.
Hell, I've even had people try to take away my ID cards because they thought it was a fake. So in order to avoid any hassle, the only social places I can hang out at, are the PG-rated ones. Library, bookstores, the mall. You can't ever go dancing in clubs, hang out in bars, and the like.
So that means that even if you and your friends are close-knit, they aren't likely to invite you to go to a club with them or something like that. And that really sucks sometimes.
5. people constantly assume that you're lying all the time, just in order to impress other people.
Many hours in a day is often wasted with people constantly scrutinizing everything I do and what I say once they find out my actual age. It's like they're thinking: “Are we sure that's not a little kid pretending to be an adult in order to impress somebody? Like in some of those 80's movies?”
it's also an constant topic that often comes up with new people... it does get old hearing this sentence, “But you look like you're __! Are you sure you're really 30??” for the 500th time. And cue them asking for my ID, just to make sure. (eye twitches)
6. It becomes a crippling source of social anxiety.
All the problems up above is enough to give you a complex about the whole thing, almost to the point where you just want to become a total homebody and NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE.
After all, it's not like you can go anywhere “fun” without people telling you that you shouldn't be there because it's supposed to be an adults-only place. Or making a massive deal about how you totally look like a little kid pretending to be an adult.
Or worrying about all the perverts who want you in the most nasty, gross way imaginable. (even not caring whenever you would consent or not because they see you as young and helpless).
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, because there's dozens of topics on social anxiety forums based on this problem.
7. having to deal with dozens and dozens of people telling me: “Oh, in ten years you'll be really thankful for the ability to look so young!” as if that magically solves all of the problems above.
So, I have to wait until I'm 40 before I even have a fully functioning social life in all aspects? Before I'm finally treated with the respect that I deserve? Yeah, didn't think of it that way, did you....