Have you ever COMPLETELY misjudged a persons age?

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Let me start out by saying that I withhold that I'm a pretty good guesser for some unknown reason. Just luck I guess. That doesn't really have much to do with this but anyway.

Last summer I worked as a cleaner at a hospital along with several other temps. Some of them quit over the course of the summer but I held in there as well as I could(although the whole affair made me have a gigantic meltdown and resulted in my diagnosis) and got through it. Now, whenever I had a break I would go off to spend some alone time instead of sitting and making dull small talk with the rest of the workers in the break room which meant that I never really got to know any of the other workers. But one of my female co-workers caught my eye, not like an attraction but rather a sort of curiousness(but I won't deny that she was very cute). Whenever I would run in to her I would try to exchange a few words just so that I could get to know her a little. One day, we got off at the same time and walked out of the building together, like we had done a couple of times before. Then she asked me how old I was. I can't really say why, but she did. I told her that I was 19 and asked in return how old she was.

29. It was if I could actually hear my jaw hitting the pavement.

She was ten years older than me yet she didn't look a day over 20! I just couldn't get over it. I can't really recall how the rest of the conversation went but I remember how I just expressed my astonishment over it. Has this kind of thing ever happened to anybody else?

All the time. Only yesterday I was shocked when this woman I was working with introduced me to her teenaged daughter. I had though she was in her 20's, but she was 32.
Maybe it's because we don't study people's faces?

I am usually on the receiving end of it. I have had countless people look shocked to hear my age, or see me with a grown daughter. They usually are guessing my age to be a good ten to 15 years less than it actually is. And I have also assumed people are either younger or older than they actually are.

Well, any woman that sees that you are shocked that she is older than she looks is certainly going to like you. Going the other way... well, you better run if you're a guy!

Seriously, I find the topic stressful too. If you guess too low, they'll think you are lying because you think they look old. If you guess too high, you're toast. If you guess just right, you're toast too. Really, just don't guess is my policy.

Oh I did! I did!

I saw the most beautiful person I had ever seen.
I realized this person couldn't be but 17.
So I felt guilty for drooling in amazement.
I looked again and the same person seemed 45 or 50.

I could never really tell.
Still the prettiest figure in the world.


I usually pin it by a year or two.

She's probably married and all, but still; if you don't work with her, why not let her know your opinion? I've never met a woman who didn't want to hear that.

I'm always on the receiving end of things.
I'm 17 and most people still think I am 14 or 15.

Figures, eh?

Yeah, I got that too when I was young. Then, all of a sudden, people stopped assuming I was young. Then I got sad. I think it is the bald spot.

He...
no.

Last edited by SeaBright on 04 Feb 2008, 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Okay, be fair -- you never did use a single pronoun.

I never guess the ages correct... usually off by like 5 years, oh well, but what i really hate is when I ask a person how old they are and they say..."How old do I look?' I think they are looking for a compliment. i always want to say they look 20 years older then what I really think, but I haven't done that.......yet.

I know. It's true.

I usually try to pick the lowest possible end number for how possibly young they could be; especially when they are guys; there is NOTHING like the beaming face of a middle aged male, who is already feeling some forboding about the golden years just on the horizon. Nothing like that beaming smile.

If a lady, it depends on if I think they've spent their life trodden on others feelings in a catty or weird sort of way.

That's not true. At 26, I'm always mistaken for a young teenager. I'll go to visit a school and be yelled at for signing the visitors log. I'll get carded for buying a movie. If I'm not "dressed up," and am out with older people its not uncommon for me to be handed a children's menu. You should seen the waiter in Spain when i joined a table with fellow travel mates, all of whom had alcoholic drinks, and one asked if I wanted anything to drink.

Online though, it goes the other way. I'm most often told that people think I'm mid-late 30's, and one man I met up with, who I had previously told my age too, was visibly shocked to see that I really was that young.

Ah well. Can't be right all the time, I guess.

I misjudge people at work all the time, and I have to ask for IDs as some movies are rated R. Sometimes the people are in their 30s. It's ridiculous..

As far as it goes for what this forum's about, no.