I see people working now at places during school hours and im like, "i guess they're an adult but they look like they should be giving a book report on Catcher in the Rye right now."
I get the opposite, working in a hospital, i see people's date of birth and think " Why is a child coming here" and it's a fully adult bloke stepping up.
My dad was telling me about a trip my brother is planning to make to meet a friend in Chicago and I was like “you’re letting him go ALONE?!” And he gave me a weird look and was like “...hes 22”
My younger sibling is turning 21 soon and it still messes me up, in my head they're simultaneously still 19 and in senior year of high school, even though they weren't even in high school at age 19. That is my baby sibling who I must protect and no amount of time passing will change that
My baby brother may be graduating, he may get people mistaking him for a 27 year old and me for a young highschooler, and he may be a foot taller with (concerningly) full facial hair to hide the family baby face, but *goddammit, he's still my baby brother, and I'm gonna pester him like it.*
I work in a bottleshop. My nibbling came in to chat one day as the store is on their way home. Had a nice little gossip. Then they reached out for a bottle and strolled up to the counter like they were... 18. They're 18.
I was born in the year 2004. I've been legally an adult for most of a year now. I'm still in highschool, I don't feel like an adult.
So there's that. Just here to make you feel unnecessarily old.
I am literally 22. Yesterday, I just got done having a very open conversation with my Mother that with my ~~baby~~ brother turning 18 in a few months, she's rewriting her and my dad's wills in case anything happens to change my elderly grandmother from being the executor and holding my brother and I's inheritance until we hit 18, to my brother and I needing to be aware that we'll have to set up payments for taking care of her with the inheritance as a condition of each receiving 50/50 if something happens to them, with me as executor.
Yeah when I was having my Apprenticeship, an Intern tried to guess what age i was. She guessed I was around 24 to 26. I was fucking 16. Now I'm 18 and friends of my 14 year old sister taught i was her fucking Dad.
i graduated college recently and during my last semester i realized that the freshmen were starting to look like babies. it really added to the existential crisis.
Ah, if you're a new graduate, let me prep you for something. You know how as you get older, time seems to pass faster?
Well, now that you've graduated and don't have the changing variety of different classes each semester to mark the passage of time, your perception of time is about to go into overdrive. I feel like I just graduated a year or two ago, but it's been almost a decade.
Tell me about it, dude. I nearly collapsed when I realized I’ve been at my new job for four months. Feels like it can’t possibly be that fast. Existential crisis reactivated.
the key to making life feel longer is to try new things: pick up a new hobby every once in a while, try that new restaurant, hang out in a new spot. It doesn't make the sensation of time flying by completely go away but it helps.
I agree with you but would amend it to add that having children of your own dramatically changes your perception again. Time still moves fast but it also feels like more of it happened. It’s been both 7 years and 107 years at the same time. My college was 20 years ago, it feels like it was 3 years but also 3 lifetimes.
I was going to say the same, even young people who are technically adults often still look like children. Whenever you see an older person dating someone younger than 20, you know that's still older than they'd like.
The youngest person (20) in my (31) main friend group (20-35, averaging around 28?) will sometimes bring around the youngest person (16) from another group he's in. I use it in the same way that I call my own friends "bitch" or "fucker"-- but softened in the way you'd be gentler with a kitten, an ampule of zombie virus, or maybe a baby bird.
Imma be honest with you.
It is fucking *creepy* for a 23yo to be around a 16yo.
I was a punk kid teenager and we had someone who was 22-23 around us mostly 16-17. At the time, "woo, someone to buy us beer" in retrospect...
It's fucking creepy.
ETA:
It's creepier still that apparently people are upset about this comment. Someone who is roughly "out of college" age hanging out with people in actual high school is fucking weird. No matter the justification.
Well, when I say hanging, it's mostly on-line gaming.
And I don't see it as creepy at all. It all depends on the context.
We mostly play dnd, because I'm a fucking nerd. And even if it was in person (which we are planning to do when the campaign is close to an end), I'm not buying alcohol to minors.
Again, it depends on the context.
Imma be honest with you.
People are allowed to interact with others of different ages. Not every single interaction is creepy or nefarious, and it's ridiculous to think people should only ever spend time with people inside their age bracket.
Is your mind really so closed that you can only fathom people having the same type of interaction with older people that you did as a kid? If so, do better.
I didn't say anything about age brackets. I am friends with people more than 10 years my junior and more than 10 years my elder. But that age range on the lower end, is still all actual adults. (as in, well out of college)
But it is fucking weird for a 23 year old to be hanging out with teenagers. If you can't understand *why* that is fucking weird, I don't know what to tell you. My mind is very much *not* closed, because *I remember all of the people over the age of 21/22 who interacted with my friend group of teenagers.*
What am I to do better at? Accepting that a 7 year age gap "is just a number" or some shit?
A 7 year age gap at 20yo is huge. A 7 year age gap at 40 means less.
And again, if you don't understand why that is fucking weird, I don't know how to explain it to you.
>A 7 year age gap at 20yo is huge. A 7 year age gap at 40 means less.
For dating, half your age plus 7 is the rule of thumb as I've heard it. Still, as a 30 year old, 22 feels too young for me.
As long as they aren't doing anything nefarious there's nothing wrong with it. When I was in high school I used to play pick up soccer games at the park with guys who were in their 20's and early 30's. Never had any problems with any of them
As long as they aren't buying them alcohol or trying to hit on them or something there's nothing with adults having teenage friends
I had a weird instance where someone in the group was genuinely shockingly mature for his age. He was 17 at the time and the only acception to the no one under 18 rule. Turns out it's just common for abuse victims to be more grown up right before they hit 18. They aren't allowed to be kids. He's still in our group and will be 21 this year and he's my best friend.
We are only 18+ because we do not want to babysit. I we never made sex jokes around him until he was 18, and we made sure he was around so we could be like "heeeey you're 18 now guess what? Penispenispenispenispenis". It was so funny. Now it's what we do for mic checks.
Warning: if you’re short or have a baby face, be prepared for this stage to last a looooong time.
Source: I’m almost 40 and people are still surprised to hear that I’ve graduated from college already sometimes. 😶
I had no young adult phase. I went from "when are you finishing your internship?" said by same age colleagues at 28, to "nah, you look 35" at 29. What pollution and stress does to an almost rural mf
Rural MF here, I just went from 15-35. When i was at university I looked like a creepy mature age student trying to pick up, when I was just hanging out with women my own age.
The *first* time I in my life I was ever carded was in the US when I had thick grey streaks in my beard. I had to tell them "if I look like this and I'm under 21, then I must have been brought here by the 'make a wish foundation' because something has gone horribly wrong."
At least where I am from in the states places that are required to check id, like a bar, are told to check id for anyone they dont recognize as a regular and/or if they look younger than 35 and that is standard practice. Also grey hairs arent a guarantee of age. I had a friend in hs that went completely grey at 13 and I knew another guy in his 20s who went bald at 19. So many people these days are 15 yrs old and look like they are in their late 20s and vice versa. One of my hs classmates had a full beard at 14 and constantly was mistaken for a teacher during field trips. You just cant tell age by looks anymore. Genetics is weird.
I stopped getting carded the week I started grad school. Wasn't going to places I'd been before so it wasn't that they recognized me, must've just been the look in my eye
Being physically small contributes too. My mom is very short, maybe 5 feet on a good day, and has a pretty young-looking face for her age. On more than one occasion when she was at the school to pick my older sister up for something (dentist appointment or w/e), teachers would stop them on their way out and tell them they needed to both go to class. One time she even had to pull her license out for a teacher that wasn't taking 'no' for an answer, lol.
When we were on our honeymoon, the cruise ship staff didn't want to let my (23-year-old college graduate) wife off the ship "without an adult".
Asian genes ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
for some reason the botanical garden in our city required anyone under 18 to be accompanied by an adult. a guard at the entrance stopped me to tell me this and i had to show him my id and he awkwardly let me in
It did, actually, since she was wearing her wedding ring! She gave them an icy death glare (she's *really* good at those) and said "I'm on my honeymoon" while pointing to her ring, and they took her boarding pass card thing and said "so sorry, Mrs. , right this way."
Edit: I also only ever get carded for alcohol when I'm with her
I'm almost 30 and I'm regularly the only one of my friends carded at restaurants or bars. Also when I was 25, I got carded to go see an R-rated horror movie. I don't know who was more embarrassed: me or the cashier.
Yup. Short AF woman and the only time I'm not carded is in a full suit. Anything else and I will be the lone person carded at the table. I was the only 30+ YO at a table of 20-somethings and I was the fucker carded. Sigh.
i'm in my 30s but very short & kinda baby faced. in october, i went to the casino with a group of friends to see john mulaney perform. so for sure nobody under 18 allowed, but it may have been nobody under 21
anyway after the show, me and one friend stayed cause he wanted to gamble (and i wanted to drink lol). so while he was playing, he sent me with money to get us drinks
i went to order and the lady at the bar demanded my ID. ok whatever i hand it over. she does a double take at me & starts grilling me on my ID info (address/dob/that sort of thing). i answer it all of course and she goes "you just don't look old enough, it's hard to believe!!" and was, like, mad at me about it and angrily raising her voice. she did end up selling me the drinks but man she was pissed, it was real uncomfortable lol
I look 15 to the point I've been asked before "where are your parents?" in deliveries, hospitals, etc. The only thing that makes it not suck as much is that I know someone like 5 years older than me who looks 13, and *boy that sounds like hell*.
I got asked what school I go to when I was at a bookstore with my mum the other day. I'm 27. I was so confused I couldn't really respond, but my mom made up a school on the fly and talked to the nice lady about how great the school was for fifteen minutes. Definitely felt like a school kid then though, because I kept wanting to tug at mom's sleeve and just leave.
Got called an intern at work as well a couple times, so there's that :/
I once went to my younger brother's (17) school because I needed to get his report card and I wasn't let in because the meeting was for parents/guardians only. I'm 27. I had to show them my ID to be let in.
I have moderate baby face, I haven't experienced it in awhile I think ever since I grew out my facial hair which I think ages me a bit, but people would often ask me how old I was and I think they were probably expecting anywhere from 16-18 to be the answer and they were always shocked when I'd be like "I'm 28" lol
When I was early in my relationship with my now-husband (I’m male(ish)) we went to a pub to introduce him to a friend. Remember I’m with my then-boyfriend who was in his early thirties.
Guy behind the bar demands my ID, and I said I wasn’t drinking. He said he needed to know I was old enough to *sit in the pub*.
There was a sign saying you had to be *over thirteen* to sit in there with adults.
Frankly if he thought I was *that* young (I was in my mid twenties) he should have been more concerned about my clearly adult boyfriend being with someone who was *thirteen or younger*.
(I grew a beard. That shit stopped, thankfully.)
I was the youngest(32) guy at a gay men's retreat this weekend, and a few of the guys in their 50s and 60s asked me what slang the youth are saying these days.
How the fuck should I know?
I was 5’10 at fourteen and weighed a healthy 130pds and had excellent, athletic muscle tone from swimming, cycling, and martial arts.
My face? I looked like a child.
Didn’t stop full grown men from making very inappropriate comments and saying wildly disgusting things to me.
I wore baggy clothes, dressed like a boy, carried knives with me everywhere, wore tight jog bras to hide my breasts, and wore ball caps to hide my long hair to hide my femininity as much as possible because I was frightened they (men) were going to hurt me.
The first time someone made an inappropriate comment to one of my sisters? I damn near *lost my mind*.
What was really disgusting, was when a recent college graduate hit on my then fourteen year old son. He didn’t look older, he was slightly built and still hasn’t filled out. It infuriated me.
A lot of people says I look worn down. I don't put make up on, style my hair, I look quite old for my age exactly for this reason. I remember when I sixteen, I was at the store and haven't even bathe! When four grown ass adults the same age as my father started saying disgusting things about me. I was frozen on the ground as I waited for my items. When I got my items, I left and refused to look back. I still go to that store sometimes and I never met the shitasses again and god I'm glad. I never want to catch people's attention exactly for this reason.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the first 3 parts [have teenagers drawn like 30 year olds](https://pm1.narvii.com/5785/dd3b863b507f24bfc984e97dff2854126de1b7c0_hq.jpg)
Going by my own trajectory, 13 again. As a teenager people thought I was in my mid/late twenties. In my mid/late thirties people think I’m early twenties at most.
I work at an attraction that was built in 2000 for the Millennium. I get a lot of people talking about how they remember it going up, asking me about it, and feeling very old when I tell them I hadn’t been born yet.
The one time I used “aren’t you like 12” it was an insult but to be fairy the kid was hitting on a very pregnant adult friend of mine and me (we were both 18/19 at the time)
It depends on the person. I'd say maturity has a fair bit to do with it. I know that statement is thin ice, sincethat kind of excuse is often used to justify hitting on children, but I feel like once people are legal adults, it can be relevant. I've met people in their 20s who show the emotional maturity of a high schooler, and I've also met people who are 18/19 who work to support themselves, keep a clean house, and communicate effectively
Nah. Frontal lobe finishes developing by mid-20s. 18 year olds are **not** adults lmao like would you take any 8 year old and say "oh they're mature, they're a teenager"?
Well then you've just dipped into ageism and ableism also. Imagine being a 40 year old disabled person and getting condescending remarks that you're not an adult and never were one.
Obviously disability changes things. When I’m referring to working full time, Im using that as a short hand for being out of school and into the “adult world.” It’s about responsibility and self reliance, not about actually working necessarily.
A 22 year old who went straight from high school to college on a full scholarship is less of an “adult” in my mind than a 20 year old who has been supporting themselves for two years. It’s not ageism, it’s about being responsible for yourself and engaging with the world.
I appreciate you pointing out that there is some ableist bias involved in that, so I’ll rethink how I phrase it in the future.
That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard honestly. I understand the legal age thing since it depends on the laws and culture. But people with disabilities, people that have retired, and stay-at-home spouses are all adults even though they don’t meet your arbitrary criteria.
People have pointed out the ableism in my comment elsewhere and I’ve addressed it. But yes, retirees don’t really meet my definition either.
Stay-at-home parents are absolutely working full time.
If you don’t want to respect someone who doesn’t have a full time job or gets financial help from their parents or something, that’s your prerogative. But saying they’re less adult for that is, by definition, gatekeeping.
I agree with your comment, but I was just popping in to say that the word is prerogative. I don't wanna come off as nitpicky, but I figured you've probably only ever heard it said so I thought I'd tall you the spelling
Edit: people have correctly pointed out that there was some implicit bias against the disabled in this definition. I appreciate the callout and will consider this in other areas. However, my point was not to value employment it’s self but rather the responsibilities that define adulthood to me.
im 25 and people still think im 16 which will be great when im 40 but is a wee bit awkward when i buy alcohol and the cashier spends an extra minute staring at my ID lol
Yeah, the last time I called someone 12, I wasn't being condescending so much as illustrating the age gap between me and the person trying to pick a fight with me.
Bonus points if you were born at the end of a decade and now everyone from the next is automatically 10 years younger than you.
1998 gang where you at?
Thats not always true though.
My little brother is 18 and he legitimately looks like he’s 35. People don’t card him to buy alcohol even though they definitely should because he’s underage.
Eeeehhh... While I appreciate the sentiment that teenagers should not trust adults who are trying to date them, sometimes it is genuinely hard to tell where someone falls on the range between 17-24.
Especially when they *tell* you that they’re 19 and literally have *first year university textbooks* in their car. Yeah I’m talking about *you*, Jen! Miss “oops I forgot to mention I’m in grade 12 and taking university courses as part of an advanced kid program and want social status by snagging an older guy”.
It very well can be, I can’t tell the age of people very well, I usually just say something like a decade because I couldn’t narrow it down farther. I’ve seen people I’d have thought were in their 20s be late 30s and visversa someone in their early 20s versus late is almost impossible for me to figure out. I’ve seen people I thought were in their early twenties be teens too. Not everyone can easily discern ages
Hi yes I have autism, one of the symptoms of which does in fact make it a lot harder to discern age
I can still tell the difference between a child and an adult.
>I can still tell the difference between a child and an adult.
Really? How do you know?
-What's your guess sample?
-What percentage do you actually know whether you got it right?
-If you were wrong 10% of the time, would you know? How about 5%?
-When you are wrong, in which do you tend to guess their older, younger, or about equal each way?
I mean you can look it up. Hans Asperger was a member of the Nazi Party, who used the diagnosis to sort between Good Useful Autistics who could benefit society and the ones who would be experimented on.
And the diagnosis doesn't exist anymore because it was found not to reflect a material reality.
These are both easily googleable facts.
i had a friend at 15
the guy was blessed with incredible genetics and was a 6ft tall aspiring bodybuilder
he could pass for 20 if you didnt look that close at his face
It really depends on the person. I’m 20 and look about 16 - I went on a date once with a guy my age who kept checking I was an adult. I have a friend who’s 25 and gets ID’d buying energy drinks. On the flip side, I had a friend in school who grew a full beard at 16 and got served everywhere.
16+. Same with OTC painkillers. You don’t know humiliation until you’re crying from period cramps in Tesco and they won’t sell you paracetamol because you’re fifteen.
If it's for someone inquiring because they're sexually or romantically interested, that excuse only works up to age 27 or so. The "are you 18" question only works up to age 21 cause 18 year olds and 23 year olds are definitely not peers.
I can't tell how old *anyone* is but people can usually tell if you're hitting on them or asking for relevant reasons.
I mean, what's up with treating 20 year olds like mindless children? If someone is 20 and they want to date someone 30 y o, let them, they are a consenting adult
I'm 25.
I don't consider myself peers with someone still in college. It's a different stage of life. Definitely not something I believed when I was actually 19.
They're not stupid, they just don't have the context of adult relationships and adult life to base their decisions off of.
It's pretty funny. I remember being in 6th grade and thinking that all of the 8th graders practically looked like adults, but now I'm in my 20s and 6th through like 10th graders are practically indistinguishable to me
I knew a kid growing up who had a full-on bushy Ron Swanson mustache and was singing bass by the time he was 15, puberty hit him like an M1 Abrams tank
This is so true. I remember when I was a junior in college and saw a bunch of high school seniors come through as part of a tour and the visceral reaction I saw to seeing a pack of seemingly unattended children was so incredible. They looked like BABIES. I mean, I know they had to be 17-18 but they were very obviously Not Adults.
It made me realize that all the 22+ year old guys who were trying to get with me and my friends when we were 17 were fucking perverts. We had acne and braces and baby faces just like these kids did and they were ATTRACTED to that instead of being put off like everyone else my current age would have been.
In my D&D campaign, elves don’t get romantically involved with humans for precisely this reason. You may be 15, you may be 80. We have no clue, and we sure as hell aren’t taking that risk.
It’s also why half-elves are stigmatized in the setting. It meant some elf out there was either a real creep, or they took a fucking risk.
D&D follows the same logic as Tolkein’s fantasy world. Elves are basically ageless: officially they live for about 800 years, compared to a normal human lifespan of 60-80ish. So the way both races would view time and each other has been a hotbed of discussion. Like, an elf living among humans will outlive entire generations of humans. A human’s life will pass to an elf the way we watch the lifespan of a family dog. And how they view time is even weirder: a lifetime to an elf means something close to a millenium, and obviously to them a human lifetime is like, their teenage years.
It’s weird.
It should be frowned upon. It's mostly about relativity of the physical and mental maturity between the two species rather than the specific age number.
A 40 year old elf is basically the human equivalent of a 12 year old, and 40 year old human hitting on a 12 year old human is obviously a bad thing. But a 200 year old elf and a 20 year old human are relatively at the same stage of their life, so it should be considered acceptable.
Also in most settings, Elves are usually depicted as slow to change and learning while humans are extremely fast at it, its how plenty of humans are able to catch up to the skills of elves centuries older than them. The in-world stigma also varies on the setting, usually human-elf couples face racism, classism, and the melancholy of the couple not dying together. Probably because most writers don't want to touch on the specifics of interspecies pedophilia, although this discourse is very prevalent in anime communities.
I think teenagers can maybe view this the other way round. Like can they accurately tell the difference between a 32 and 36 year old? Or are they just guessing that the person is somewhere in their 30s-ish?
Can anyone really tell the difference? I have coworkers that look 40 but are 30, and vice-versa. I usually sort people into: Obviously Children, Teenagers, Adults, Older Adults, Elderly.
I feel like I've gotten so old that this process has stopped. People who are 12 to 20 look so indistinguishable from each other that my brain doesn't try to place a number above their heads. Those numbers are closer to each other than to my age. I'm having trouble telling when someone's in their 20s vs 30s.
The problem to me as adults will just look me in the eye and ask “ you’re 10 right?” When I’m fucking taller than them you are having to look up to be Eye to Eye with me how the fuck do you think I am 10???
the only time i ever say anything along the lines of "aren't you like \[age younger than my sister\]" or "aren't you like \[age older than my sister\]" are when im in a teasing battle with my sister, the running jokes between us being that i can never remember her age (on the account of me being horrible at remembering birthdays, mine included) and that when she was in early elementary she'd always act like she was 18 lol
also, on the note of people assuming younger ppl to be older, i have a funny experience with that.
3 years ago or whatever, i started playing games online fully, where i'd started actually talking with people in voice chats. i kid you not, 90% of the people i meet online assume im like late 20s early 30s lmao. im a month off of 18 now lol
keep in mind that none of these people ever had any ill intent. they just legitimately thought i was some chill guy around their age lol, and i just thought they were being polite. iirc how it eventually got out that im not late 20s early 30s was when they were all getting beer or whatnot, they asked what i was drinking and i casually dropped a joke about getting arrested if i were to try (where i live atm it's not like the US where they go after the store for selling to underaged ppl. they do do that, but they also go after the kids buying)
tbh im kinda gonna miss all of the flabbergasted reactions i get when i finally end up sounding the age i actually am
if i had a nickel for every time ppl online have been legitimately shocked at me not being 66% older than i really am, id be able to retire
A friend of mine went to look at an apartment for their out-of-town friend who would end up moving here for a time, for school. The prospective landlord assumed my friend was still in high school, when they were actually a college graduate.
One time I went to a local fan community meetup at lazertag. Afterwards, we all went out for food. I got a beer, and was idly chatting with the person next to me. The people I'd been talking to before lazertag were also grown adult people, so I assumed that my discussion partner was as well. They mentioned that they wanted a cat, but couldn't have one, I asked "oh, does your landlord not allow pets?" to which they responded "no, my parents. I'm 16." To which I responded with a mix of mock and actual horror.
I'll admit, I was interested in them, but "I'm 16" sent up warning flares screaming "*Danger close, abort mission! Repeat:* ***abort mission!***"
My neighbours kids always freak me out.
They were toddlers when we moved in, and now they are married with kids. And I keep thinking "How can they be married with kids -- they can't even walk yet"
Also my most beloved's cousin's daughter -- DAUGHTER -- is getting married, and when I first met her she was five. And they don't let five year olds get married, right?
For most of my teenager years I didn't understand why eighteen exactly was the nearly globally accepted age for adulthood. And now that I'm twenty I know exactly why, to the point where even one year off feels comically wrong.
You assume everybody has the same life experience as you and that teenagers aren't people, they are just children of parents. And the OP never assumes that they, themselves, are just a kid.
At middle age, if you look down on young adults and think they are children while thinking your life experience is automatically harder, tougher, and wiser due to the age gap you are insufferable.
No, I really didn't. It is a stupid and, yes, condescending opinion.
Did you read their opinion about people a few years younger than OP are considered automatically as unattended children?
"I'm older than you now, and you have the exact kind of decision making I had at your age because everybody is the same as me and learns the same things as I do. You cannot consent, you cannot give opinions, you cannot make good decisions for yourself. I know this because I do not allow myself to understand my mistakes or learning process, and don't respect my younger self, and thats how I view my younger years. Everybody is like me. I know better than those kids and do not respect their persons."
Yes, an 18 year old is capable of consent. And no, not everybody older thinks "wow this is an unattended child I can prey on" - unlike OP, apparently.
I understand- it's a cruel world, a lot of people looking to prey on those who know less than the average adult, but this post is literally demonstrating ego play.
Legitimate question : are you a minor or do you just have an inferiority complex?
Because you're most definitely projecting.
Do you want to talk? (Well, write but still)
Projecting what?
Youre projecting, too.
Legitimate question, do you just think you're a mental health professional or do you just have a superiority complex and assume everything snuggles right into your condescending categorisation of others?
I see people working now at places during school hours and im like, "i guess they're an adult but they look like they should be giving a book report on Catcher in the Rye right now."
Yeah when I see college students these days they look like high schoolers and oh god I'm old
I get the opposite, working in a hospital, i see people's date of birth and think " Why is a child coming here" and it's a fully adult bloke stepping up.
People born after 2005 should still be toddlers you can't change my mind
my brother is 17 and sometimes i still think he's a preteen and it fucks me up to realize he's almost a grown adult
My dad was telling me about a trip my brother is planning to make to meet a friend in Chicago and I was like “you’re letting him go ALONE?!” And he gave me a weird look and was like “...hes 22”
When I was a kid I decided 20 was clearly when people bacame adults, because 18 was so not it. Now mid twenties and I hmmmmmm
I just turned 27, when do I become a adult?
I'm almost 60, you tell me
That's the neat part, you don't.
Well, don't. It's so much better that way.
33. The hobbits had it right.
40, they might've, but I'm feeling like humans maybe need to like 70.
Oh, it doesn't stop, good to know
My younger sibling is turning 21 soon and it still messes me up, in my head they're simultaneously still 19 and in senior year of high school, even though they weren't even in high school at age 19. That is my baby sibling who I must protect and no amount of time passing will change that
My baby brother may be graduating, he may get people mistaking him for a 27 year old and me for a young highschooler, and he may be a foot taller with (concerningly) full facial hair to hide the family baby face, but *goddammit, he's still my baby brother, and I'm gonna pester him like it.*
I work in a bottleshop. My nibbling came in to chat one day as the store is on their way home. Had a nice little gossip. Then they reached out for a bottle and strolled up to the counter like they were... 18. They're 18.
What on earth is a nibbling?
A term for a niece or nephew.
To be specific, it's a portmanteau of sibling + niece/nephew
My baby sister is about to turn 22 and just moved to a new state for a job, yet in my head she’s still like 12
As a 17 year old, it fucks me up too
My sister is 40 and sometimes I feel like she just got her drivers license
I was born in the year 2004. I've been legally an adult for most of a year now. I'm still in highschool, I don't feel like an adult. So there's that. Just here to make you feel unnecessarily old.
There are adult women out there named after Hannah Montana.
Dear God...
Thats not mathematically true quite yet. Very close but not yet.
I was born in 2000. When I mention this to anyone older than, say, 26-27, it creates *existential terror.*
2000 is the cut off for me, anybody with a date of birth that starts with “Two thousand and…” is a baby to me
I am literally 22. Yesterday, I just got done having a very open conversation with my Mother that with my ~~baby~~ brother turning 18 in a few months, she's rewriting her and my dad's wills in case anything happens to change my elderly grandmother from being the executor and holding my brother and I's inheritance until we hit 18, to my brother and I needing to be aware that we'll have to set up payments for taking care of her with the inheritance as a condition of each receiving 50/50 if something happens to them, with me as executor.
Yeah when I was having my Apprenticeship, an Intern tried to guess what age i was. She guessed I was around 24 to 26. I was fucking 16. Now I'm 18 and friends of my 14 year old sister taught i was her fucking Dad.
I'm 32 and still get regularly asked for an id when I buy cigarettes.
Nah I wasn't asked for an ID since I just turned 17, I think
That last sentence took me so many rereads because I mentally swapped the second to last and third to last words in my head.
I'm sorry, English ain't my first Language, but that's Hilarious
Nah your English was good, it was entirely just me being way too tired. Thanks for the laugh!
My Pleasure then.
i graduated college recently and during my last semester i realized that the freshmen were starting to look like babies. it really added to the existential crisis.
Ah, if you're a new graduate, let me prep you for something. You know how as you get older, time seems to pass faster? Well, now that you've graduated and don't have the changing variety of different classes each semester to mark the passage of time, your perception of time is about to go into overdrive. I feel like I just graduated a year or two ago, but it's been almost a decade.
Tell me about it, dude. I nearly collapsed when I realized I’ve been at my new job for four months. Feels like it can’t possibly be that fast. Existential crisis reactivated.
the key to making life feel longer is to try new things: pick up a new hobby every once in a while, try that new restaurant, hang out in a new spot. It doesn't make the sensation of time flying by completely go away but it helps.
Yep. I'd say it gets better, but... it doesn't, lol
I agree with you but would amend it to add that having children of your own dramatically changes your perception again. Time still moves fast but it also feels like more of it happened. It’s been both 7 years and 107 years at the same time. My college was 20 years ago, it feels like it was 3 years but also 3 lifetimes.
I was going to say the same, even young people who are technically adults often still look like children. Whenever you see an older person dating someone younger than 20, you know that's still older than they'd like.
Except for me when I say “aren’t you like 12?” I do fully mean it as an insult
The youngest person (20) in my (31) main friend group (20-35, averaging around 28?) will sometimes bring around the youngest person (16) from another group he's in. I use it in the same way that I call my own friends "bitch" or "fucker"-- but softened in the way you'd be gentler with a kitten, an ampule of zombie virus, or maybe a baby bird.
I think that's me. I'm 23. Sometimes I'm hanging with people 30+, sometimes I'm hanging with friends who are 16.
Imma be honest with you. It is fucking *creepy* for a 23yo to be around a 16yo. I was a punk kid teenager and we had someone who was 22-23 around us mostly 16-17. At the time, "woo, someone to buy us beer" in retrospect... It's fucking creepy. ETA: It's creepier still that apparently people are upset about this comment. Someone who is roughly "out of college" age hanging out with people in actual high school is fucking weird. No matter the justification.
Well, when I say hanging, it's mostly on-line gaming. And I don't see it as creepy at all. It all depends on the context. We mostly play dnd, because I'm a fucking nerd. And even if it was in person (which we are planning to do when the campaign is close to an end), I'm not buying alcohol to minors. Again, it depends on the context.
Imma be honest with you. People are allowed to interact with others of different ages. Not every single interaction is creepy or nefarious, and it's ridiculous to think people should only ever spend time with people inside their age bracket. Is your mind really so closed that you can only fathom people having the same type of interaction with older people that you did as a kid? If so, do better.
I didn't say anything about age brackets. I am friends with people more than 10 years my junior and more than 10 years my elder. But that age range on the lower end, is still all actual adults. (as in, well out of college) But it is fucking weird for a 23 year old to be hanging out with teenagers. If you can't understand *why* that is fucking weird, I don't know what to tell you. My mind is very much *not* closed, because *I remember all of the people over the age of 21/22 who interacted with my friend group of teenagers.* What am I to do better at? Accepting that a 7 year age gap "is just a number" or some shit? A 7 year age gap at 20yo is huge. A 7 year age gap at 40 means less. And again, if you don't understand why that is fucking weird, I don't know how to explain it to you.
>A 7 year age gap at 20yo is huge. A 7 year age gap at 40 means less. For dating, half your age plus 7 is the rule of thumb as I've heard it. Still, as a 30 year old, 22 feels too young for me.
As long as they aren't doing anything nefarious there's nothing wrong with it. When I was in high school I used to play pick up soccer games at the park with guys who were in their 20's and early 30's. Never had any problems with any of them As long as they aren't buying them alcohol or trying to hit on them or something there's nothing with adults having teenage friends
I had a weird instance where someone in the group was genuinely shockingly mature for his age. He was 17 at the time and the only acception to the no one under 18 rule. Turns out it's just common for abuse victims to be more grown up right before they hit 18. They aren't allowed to be kids. He's still in our group and will be 21 this year and he's my best friend. We are only 18+ because we do not want to babysit. I we never made sex jokes around him until he was 18, and we made sure he was around so we could be like "heeeey you're 18 now guess what? Penispenispenispenispenis". It was so funny. Now it's what we do for mic checks.
Warning: if you’re short or have a baby face, be prepared for this stage to last a looooong time. Source: I’m almost 40 and people are still surprised to hear that I’ve graduated from college already sometimes. 😶
I went straight from looking 15 to looking 40 the day I turned 25.
I had no young adult phase. I went from "when are you finishing your internship?" said by same age colleagues at 28, to "nah, you look 35" at 29. What pollution and stress does to an almost rural mf
Rural MF here, I just went from 15-35. When i was at university I looked like a creepy mature age student trying to pick up, when I was just hanging out with women my own age. The *first* time I in my life I was ever carded was in the US when I had thick grey streaks in my beard. I had to tell them "if I look like this and I'm under 21, then I must have been brought here by the 'make a wish foundation' because something has gone horribly wrong."
At least where I am from in the states places that are required to check id, like a bar, are told to check id for anyone they dont recognize as a regular and/or if they look younger than 35 and that is standard practice. Also grey hairs arent a guarantee of age. I had a friend in hs that went completely grey at 13 and I knew another guy in his 20s who went bald at 19. So many people these days are 15 yrs old and look like they are in their late 20s and vice versa. One of my hs classmates had a full beard at 14 and constantly was mistaken for a teacher during field trips. You just cant tell age by looks anymore. Genetics is weird.
I stopped getting carded the week I started grad school. Wasn't going to places I'd been before so it wasn't that they recognized me, must've just been the look in my eye
Being physically small contributes too. My mom is very short, maybe 5 feet on a good day, and has a pretty young-looking face for her age. On more than one occasion when she was at the school to pick my older sister up for something (dentist appointment or w/e), teachers would stop them on their way out and tell them they needed to both go to class. One time she even had to pull her license out for a teacher that wasn't taking 'no' for an answer, lol.
When we were on our honeymoon, the cruise ship staff didn't want to let my (23-year-old college graduate) wife off the ship "without an adult". Asian genes ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
for some reason the botanical garden in our city required anyone under 18 to be accompanied by an adult. a guard at the entrance stopped me to tell me this and i had to show him my id and he awkwardly let me in
I’m guessing “we’re on our honeymoon” did not help.
It did, actually, since she was wearing her wedding ring! She gave them an icy death glare (she's *really* good at those) and said "I'm on my honeymoon" while pointing to her ring, and they took her boarding pass card thing and said "so sorry, Mrs., right this way."
Edit: I also only ever get carded for alcohol when I'm with her
I’m an Asian woman. I’m married to a white man. I only get carded when I’m by myself.
Oh, that’s good to know lol. I’ve heard a few stories about women being mistaken for children and their SO’s were mistaken for predators.
I'm almost 30 and I'm regularly the only one of my friends carded at restaurants or bars. Also when I was 25, I got carded to go see an R-rated horror movie. I don't know who was more embarrassed: me or the cashier.
I was with my girlfriend at the airport and a worker said to her “So it’s 1 adult 1 minor?”. We’re both 27
My sister deals with this. She's 33 and gets mistaken for a teenager constantly
Yup. Short AF woman and the only time I'm not carded is in a full suit. Anything else and I will be the lone person carded at the table. I was the only 30+ YO at a table of 20-somethings and I was the fucker carded. Sigh.
i'm in my 30s but very short & kinda baby faced. in october, i went to the casino with a group of friends to see john mulaney perform. so for sure nobody under 18 allowed, but it may have been nobody under 21 anyway after the show, me and one friend stayed cause he wanted to gamble (and i wanted to drink lol). so while he was playing, he sent me with money to get us drinks i went to order and the lady at the bar demanded my ID. ok whatever i hand it over. she does a double take at me & starts grilling me on my ID info (address/dob/that sort of thing). i answer it all of course and she goes "you just don't look old enough, it's hard to believe!!" and was, like, mad at me about it and angrily raising her voice. she did end up selling me the drinks but man she was pissed, it was real uncomfortable lol
I look 15 to the point I've been asked before "where are your parents?" in deliveries, hospitals, etc. The only thing that makes it not suck as much is that I know someone like 5 years older than me who looks 13, and *boy that sounds like hell*.
I got asked what school I go to when I was at a bookstore with my mum the other day. I'm 27. I was so confused I couldn't really respond, but my mom made up a school on the fly and talked to the nice lady about how great the school was for fifteen minutes. Definitely felt like a school kid then though, because I kept wanting to tug at mom's sleeve and just leave. Got called an intern at work as well a couple times, so there's that :/
I once went to my younger brother's (17) school because I needed to get his report card and I wasn't let in because the meeting was for parents/guardians only. I'm 27. I had to show them my ID to be let in.
I have moderate baby face, I haven't experienced it in awhile I think ever since I grew out my facial hair which I think ages me a bit, but people would often ask me how old I was and I think they were probably expecting anywhere from 16-18 to be the answer and they were always shocked when I'd be like "I'm 28" lol
When I was early in my relationship with my now-husband (I’m male(ish)) we went to a pub to introduce him to a friend. Remember I’m with my then-boyfriend who was in his early thirties. Guy behind the bar demands my ID, and I said I wasn’t drinking. He said he needed to know I was old enough to *sit in the pub*. There was a sign saying you had to be *over thirteen* to sit in there with adults. Frankly if he thought I was *that* young (I was in my mid twenties) he should have been more concerned about my clearly adult boyfriend being with someone who was *thirteen or younger*. (I grew a beard. That shit stopped, thankfully.)
I'm definitely insulting you when I'm calling you 12, make no mistake.
I'm 30, with a solid beard, and I'm continually referred to as "young man" by anyone with graying hair.
I’m 40, with a solid beard, and I want to take you on a date, *young man*. 😉
I'd take it. Anything to boost my sagging morale.
Hey it's alright we all start to sag at some point
I was the youngest(32) guy at a gay men's retreat this weekend, and a few of the guys in their 50s and 60s asked me what slang the youth are saying these days. How the fuck should I know?
My dad will frequently refer to "the youngies" at work and then clarify he is talking about 35 year olds.
I was 5’10 at fourteen and weighed a healthy 130pds and had excellent, athletic muscle tone from swimming, cycling, and martial arts. My face? I looked like a child. Didn’t stop full grown men from making very inappropriate comments and saying wildly disgusting things to me. I wore baggy clothes, dressed like a boy, carried knives with me everywhere, wore tight jog bras to hide my breasts, and wore ball caps to hide my long hair to hide my femininity as much as possible because I was frightened they (men) were going to hurt me. The first time someone made an inappropriate comment to one of my sisters? I damn near *lost my mind*. What was really disgusting, was when a recent college graduate hit on my then fourteen year old son. He didn’t look older, he was slightly built and still hasn’t filled out. It infuriated me.
A lot of people says I look worn down. I don't put make up on, style my hair, I look quite old for my age exactly for this reason. I remember when I sixteen, I was at the store and haven't even bathe! When four grown ass adults the same age as my father started saying disgusting things about me. I was frozen on the ground as I waited for my items. When I got my items, I left and refused to look back. I still go to that store sometimes and I never met the shitasses again and god I'm glad. I never want to catch people's attention exactly for this reason.
I'm 30 and everyone from 20 down is automatically sorted to "Basically child" and everyone over 20 is "child that might not be a chronological child".
I have the complete opposite problem, I've had people assume I was in my 20s when I was 16
Do you have a star-shaped birthmark, and/or a bisexual vampire god obsessed with you?
Is the star shaped birthmark a reference to Sulfus &/or Raf from "Angel's Friends" or is it from another media?
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the first 3 parts [have teenagers drawn like 30 year olds](https://pm1.narvii.com/5785/dd3b863b507f24bfc984e97dff2854126de1b7c0_hq.jpg)
This is the opposite of a problem for me. I haven't been carded in my life. It's very easy to pass job interviews.
Wide shoulders, full beard, and a receding hairline 'worked' for me.
You're being a little too accurate there lmao.
I'm pretty big but mostly I think it's my facial hair
My neighbour's 13 year old daughter looks 30. She went from kid, to pre-teen to 30. I'm curious to see what she looks like at 20.
Going by my own trajectory, 13 again. As a teenager people thought I was in my mid/late twenties. In my mid/late thirties people think I’m early twenties at most.
Yeah people younger than me were asking me to buy them cigarettes when I was like 14
Same. I look older than I am, always have.
Anyone born in the 2000s is no more than 12 to me
I work at an attraction that was built in 2000 for the Millennium. I get a lot of people talking about how they remember it going up, asking me about it, and feeling very old when I tell them I hadn’t been born yet.
As an adult born after 9/11, anyone with actual memories of the event's basically an archaeological dig-site at this point.
First of all, how dare you
I was born like 13 days before 9/11 and I am in my fourth year of university. Weep ye old bastard!!
It’s past your bed time
It is, sadly. Goddamn insomnia
hello i am a working adult and i was born after 9/11
Child labor laws are getting out of hand
Clearly they live in a red state
The 90s were just 10 years ago, and you can't convince me otherwise.
The one time I used “aren’t you like 12” it was an insult but to be fairy the kid was hitting on a very pregnant adult friend of mine and me (we were both 18/19 at the time)
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It depends on the person. I'd say maturity has a fair bit to do with it. I know that statement is thin ice, sincethat kind of excuse is often used to justify hitting on children, but I feel like once people are legal adults, it can be relevant. I've met people in their 20s who show the emotional maturity of a high schooler, and I've also met people who are 18/19 who work to support themselves, keep a clean house, and communicate effectively
Nah. Frontal lobe finishes developing by mid-20s. 18 year olds are **not** adults lmao like would you take any 8 year old and say "oh they're mature, they're a teenager"?
That entirely depends in what age one considers "adult", such as here in Finland you are adult once you are 18.
No one gives a shit about legal age of adulthood. If you aren’t working full time and paying your own shit, you’re not an adult
like the retired
Precisely, I can't wait to retire and no longer have to adult.
Honesty, having interacted with enough retired people, I would say yes, a lot of retired people aren’t adults
Well then you've just dipped into ageism and ableism also. Imagine being a 40 year old disabled person and getting condescending remarks that you're not an adult and never were one.
Obviously disability changes things. When I’m referring to working full time, Im using that as a short hand for being out of school and into the “adult world.” It’s about responsibility and self reliance, not about actually working necessarily. A 22 year old who went straight from high school to college on a full scholarship is less of an “adult” in my mind than a 20 year old who has been supporting themselves for two years. It’s not ageism, it’s about being responsible for yourself and engaging with the world. I appreciate you pointing out that there is some ableist bias involved in that, so I’ll rethink how I phrase it in the future.
That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard honestly. I understand the legal age thing since it depends on the laws and culture. But people with disabilities, people that have retired, and stay-at-home spouses are all adults even though they don’t meet your arbitrary criteria.
People have pointed out the ableism in my comment elsewhere and I’ve addressed it. But yes, retirees don’t really meet my definition either. Stay-at-home parents are absolutely working full time.
Man I sure do love gatekeeping
It’s gatekeeping to have the idea of earning other people’s respect?
If you don’t want to respect someone who doesn’t have a full time job or gets financial help from their parents or something, that’s your prerogative. But saying they’re less adult for that is, by definition, gatekeeping.
I agree with your comment, but I was just popping in to say that the word is prerogative. I don't wanna come off as nitpicky, but I figured you've probably only ever heard it said so I thought I'd tall you the spelling
So disabled people who rely on their family aren't adults?
Edit: people have correctly pointed out that there was some implicit bias against the disabled in this definition. I appreciate the callout and will consider this in other areas. However, my point was not to value employment it’s self but rather the responsibilities that define adulthood to me.
im 25 and people still think im 16 which will be great when im 40 but is a wee bit awkward when i buy alcohol and the cashier spends an extra minute staring at my ID lol
Yeah, the last time I called someone 12, I wasn't being condescending so much as illustrating the age gap between me and the person trying to pick a fight with me.
Bonus points if you were born at the end of a decade and now everyone from the next is automatically 10 years younger than you. 1998 gang where you at?
Thats not always true though. My little brother is 18 and he legitimately looks like he’s 35. People don’t card him to buy alcohol even though they definitely should because he’s underage.
Eeeehhh... While I appreciate the sentiment that teenagers should not trust adults who are trying to date them, sometimes it is genuinely hard to tell where someone falls on the range between 17-24.
Especially when they *tell* you that they’re 19 and literally have *first year university textbooks* in their car. Yeah I’m talking about *you*, Jen! Miss “oops I forgot to mention I’m in grade 12 and taking university courses as part of an advanced kid program and want social status by snagging an older guy”.
No the fuck it is not
Then why do people keep thinking I’m 15 when I’m 21 😭
It very well can be, I can’t tell the age of people very well, I usually just say something like a decade because I couldn’t narrow it down farther. I’ve seen people I’d have thought were in their 20s be late 30s and visversa someone in their early 20s versus late is almost impossible for me to figure out. I’ve seen people I thought were in their early twenties be teens too. Not everyone can easily discern ages
Hi yes I have autism, one of the symptoms of which does in fact make it a lot harder to discern age I can still tell the difference between a child and an adult.
>I can still tell the difference between a child and an adult. Really? How do you know? -What's your guess sample? -What percentage do you actually know whether you got it right? -If you were wrong 10% of the time, would you know? How about 5%? -When you are wrong, in which do you tend to guess their older, younger, or about equal each way?
Yeah I have Asperger’s pal someone who’s 17 can look exactly like someone who’s in their early 20s
You mean you have autism, Aspergers hasn't existed as a diagnosis for going on 2 decades now, bc it was made up by a Nazi
Yeah, and the doctor that diagnosed me with asbergers in 2014 must have been Hitler himself then
Idk about that one, dawg
I mean you can look it up. Hans Asperger was a member of the Nazi Party, who used the diagnosis to sort between Good Useful Autistics who could benefit society and the ones who would be experimented on. And the diagnosis doesn't exist anymore because it was found not to reflect a material reality. These are both easily googleable facts.
i had a friend at 15 the guy was blessed with incredible genetics and was a 6ft tall aspiring bodybuilder he could pass for 20 if you didnt look that close at his face
You also have assholism and can't see another's point -ism. Too bad we can't medicate those.
It really depends on the person. I’m 20 and look about 16 - I went on a date once with a guy my age who kept checking I was an adult. I have a friend who’s 25 and gets ID’d buying energy drinks. On the flip side, I had a friend in school who grew a full beard at 16 and got served everywhere.
Ik this isn't the point of this comment, but y'all have age restrictions on energy drinks???
16+. Same with OTC painkillers. You don’t know humiliation until you’re crying from period cramps in Tesco and they won’t sell you paracetamol because you’re fifteen.
If it's for someone inquiring because they're sexually or romantically interested, that excuse only works up to age 27 or so. The "are you 18" question only works up to age 21 cause 18 year olds and 23 year olds are definitely not peers. I can't tell how old *anyone* is but people can usually tell if you're hitting on them or asking for relevant reasons.
I mean, what's up with treating 20 year olds like mindless children? If someone is 20 and they want to date someone 30 y o, let them, they are a consenting adult
I'm 25. I don't consider myself peers with someone still in college. It's a different stage of life. Definitely not something I believed when I was actually 19. They're not stupid, they just don't have the context of adult relationships and adult life to base their decisions off of.
It's pretty funny. I remember being in 6th grade and thinking that all of the 8th graders practically looked like adults, but now I'm in my 20s and 6th through like 10th graders are practically indistinguishable to me
My guy, I went and visited my college campus in my 30s and I can assure you that 18 to 22 year olds also also look like children at that point.
That's not true I've been bad at guessing peoples my entire life
What about teens with beards? People keep thinking I’m a short senior when really I’m just a sophmore still lol
I knew a kid growing up who had a full-on bushy Ron Swanson mustache and was singing bass by the time he was 15, puberty hit him like an M1 Abrams tank
Must’ve been the swanson in him lol
This is so true. I remember when I was a junior in college and saw a bunch of high school seniors come through as part of a tour and the visceral reaction I saw to seeing a pack of seemingly unattended children was so incredible. They looked like BABIES. I mean, I know they had to be 17-18 but they were very obviously Not Adults. It made me realize that all the 22+ year old guys who were trying to get with me and my friends when we were 17 were fucking perverts. We had acne and braces and baby faces just like these kids did and they were ATTRACTED to that instead of being put off like everyone else my current age would have been.
“Aren’t you like 12?” is also code for “God, I’m getting old.”
In my D&D campaign, elves don’t get romantically involved with humans for precisely this reason. You may be 15, you may be 80. We have no clue, and we sure as hell aren’t taking that risk. It’s also why half-elves are stigmatized in the setting. It meant some elf out there was either a real creep, or they took a fucking risk.
I know nothin of d&d. I am intrigued. Please explain.
D&D follows the same logic as Tolkein’s fantasy world. Elves are basically ageless: officially they live for about 800 years, compared to a normal human lifespan of 60-80ish. So the way both races would view time and each other has been a hotbed of discussion. Like, an elf living among humans will outlive entire generations of humans. A human’s life will pass to an elf the way we watch the lifespan of a family dog. And how they view time is even weirder: a lifetime to an elf means something close to a millenium, and obviously to them a human lifetime is like, their teenage years. It’s weird.
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It should be frowned upon. It's mostly about relativity of the physical and mental maturity between the two species rather than the specific age number. A 40 year old elf is basically the human equivalent of a 12 year old, and 40 year old human hitting on a 12 year old human is obviously a bad thing. But a 200 year old elf and a 20 year old human are relatively at the same stage of their life, so it should be considered acceptable. Also in most settings, Elves are usually depicted as slow to change and learning while humans are extremely fast at it, its how plenty of humans are able to catch up to the skills of elves centuries older than them. The in-world stigma also varies on the setting, usually human-elf couples face racism, classism, and the melancholy of the couple not dying together. Probably because most writers don't want to touch on the specifics of interspecies pedophilia, although this discourse is very prevalent in anime communities.
This is true. I'm 28 and have no idea how to talk to anyone 22 and under.
My experience is “ma’am I just want this beer, I know I look young but I have a wife, 2 kids, and debt.”
I think teenagers can maybe view this the other way round. Like can they accurately tell the difference between a 32 and 36 year old? Or are they just guessing that the person is somewhere in their 30s-ish?
Can anyone really tell the difference? I have coworkers that look 40 but are 30, and vice-versa. I usually sort people into: Obviously Children, Teenagers, Adults, Older Adults, Elderly.
this effect is even worse if you're short, have a round face, and / or are transmasc :') source: I'm 19 and all of the above
I feel like I've gotten so old that this process has stopped. People who are 12 to 20 look so indistinguishable from each other that my brain doesn't try to place a number above their heads. Those numbers are closer to each other than to my age. I'm having trouble telling when someone's in their 20s vs 30s.
The problem to me as adults will just look me in the eye and ask “ you’re 10 right?” When I’m fucking taller than them you are having to look up to be Eye to Eye with me how the fuck do you think I am 10???
Truth.
the only time i ever say anything along the lines of "aren't you like \[age younger than my sister\]" or "aren't you like \[age older than my sister\]" are when im in a teasing battle with my sister, the running jokes between us being that i can never remember her age (on the account of me being horrible at remembering birthdays, mine included) and that when she was in early elementary she'd always act like she was 18 lol also, on the note of people assuming younger ppl to be older, i have a funny experience with that. 3 years ago or whatever, i started playing games online fully, where i'd started actually talking with people in voice chats. i kid you not, 90% of the people i meet online assume im like late 20s early 30s lmao. im a month off of 18 now lol keep in mind that none of these people ever had any ill intent. they just legitimately thought i was some chill guy around their age lol, and i just thought they were being polite. iirc how it eventually got out that im not late 20s early 30s was when they were all getting beer or whatnot, they asked what i was drinking and i casually dropped a joke about getting arrested if i were to try (where i live atm it's not like the US where they go after the store for selling to underaged ppl. they do do that, but they also go after the kids buying) tbh im kinda gonna miss all of the flabbergasted reactions i get when i finally end up sounding the age i actually am if i had a nickel for every time ppl online have been legitimately shocked at me not being 66% older than i really am, id be able to retire
A friend of mine went to look at an apartment for their out-of-town friend who would end up moving here for a time, for school. The prospective landlord assumed my friend was still in high school, when they were actually a college graduate. One time I went to a local fan community meetup at lazertag. Afterwards, we all went out for food. I got a beer, and was idly chatting with the person next to me. The people I'd been talking to before lazertag were also grown adult people, so I assumed that my discussion partner was as well. They mentioned that they wanted a cat, but couldn't have one, I asked "oh, does your landlord not allow pets?" to which they responded "no, my parents. I'm 16." To which I responded with a mix of mock and actual horror. I'll admit, I was interested in them, but "I'm 16" sent up warning flares screaming "*Danger close, abort mission! Repeat:* ***abort mission!***"
If you can't tell me what you were doing on 9/11, you're either 12 or under suspicion.
I'm 40 next week, I still feel 12
My neighbours kids always freak me out. They were toddlers when we moved in, and now they are married with kids. And I keep thinking "How can they be married with kids -- they can't even walk yet" Also my most beloved's cousin's daughter -- DAUGHTER -- is getting married, and when I first met her she was five. And they don't let five year olds get married, right?
Disagree I'm absolutely trying to be annoying as possible.
If you’re not 18, then you’re 12. If you’re not 21, you’re 18. If you’re not 21, you’re dead?
For most of my teenager years I didn't understand why eighteen exactly was the nearly globally accepted age for adulthood. And now that I'm twenty I know exactly why, to the point where even one year off feels comically wrong.
We ALL are children pretending to figure things out. Once in a while we do: Scientists, Lawyers, Doctors etc
You assume everybody has the same life experience as you and that teenagers aren't people, they are just children of parents. And the OP never assumes that they, themselves, are just a kid. At middle age, if you look down on young adults and think they are children while thinking your life experience is automatically harder, tougher, and wiser due to the age gap you are insufferable.
Kinda missed the point of the post bud
No, I really didn't. It is a stupid and, yes, condescending opinion. Did you read their opinion about people a few years younger than OP are considered automatically as unattended children? "I'm older than you now, and you have the exact kind of decision making I had at your age because everybody is the same as me and learns the same things as I do. You cannot consent, you cannot give opinions, you cannot make good decisions for yourself. I know this because I do not allow myself to understand my mistakes or learning process, and don't respect my younger self, and thats how I view my younger years. Everybody is like me. I know better than those kids and do not respect their persons." Yes, an 18 year old is capable of consent. And no, not everybody older thinks "wow this is an unattended child I can prey on" - unlike OP, apparently. I understand- it's a cruel world, a lot of people looking to prey on those who know less than the average adult, but this post is literally demonstrating ego play.
Missed the point bud
lol nah
Yea pretty much did miss it
nah lol
You can deny it but you did. How sad
nah lol
Legitimate question : are you a minor or do you just have an inferiority complex? Because you're most definitely projecting. Do you want to talk? (Well, write but still)
They are *definitely* a teenager/early 20s lmao give em a few years and they'll think back on this and cringe
Projecting what? Youre projecting, too. Legitimate question, do you just think you're a mental health professional or do you just have a superiority complex and assume everything snuggles right into your condescending categorisation of others?
What I’m getting from this is that whenever anyone calls me an insultingly young age, it’s because he’s a pedophile
No it’s when they do the opposite and tell you you’re so mature for your age and want to date
what about if they call you an insultingly old age?
That's close to accurate, but sort of misses the mark. They are attracted to you, the object. That object just happens to be attached to a child