Don’t Ask My Age

My reason for not telling anyone my age has nothing at all to do with shame. I like being young but somewhat mature with some life experiences, that is how I see myself, so I am personally very fine with my own age on the rare occasions that I think of it. But I also almost never think about my age, and most of the time can't remember what it is. I have always felt and looked young, no one can guess my age even when they really try, and I believe that my seeing myself as young and not thinking of my age is one of the things that keeps me young. I actually stopped telling my age to others when I was 27; at that time I looked anything from 17 to 23 depending on the viewer, and I was a university student living in student residences as I do much of the time now, too. Although everyone thought I was younger than my age and around the average uni age, one guy asked me my age and when I told him, he said, quite seriously, "You're reeeeeally oooold". I knew I was young, not old, I knew we all age differently, so it was then that I decided to no longer tell my age since I wanted to stay young in the way that I perceive myself and not be pushed into other people's stereotypes of how I should be.

People have all kinds of ideas of how someone should be according to their age, and I have never fit into any of these, or other sorts of stereotypes either. So many people allow society to push them into grooves rather than being the way they were actually meant to be according to what they are on the inside. My mother has never told her age, and she and my father have always looked years younger. My mother also has not follow the rules outlined for her by society but has a very special and unique life. I have learned my attitude from her.

The best way to stay young and healthy is to be the age that you feel, and the best way to preserve that is to not give out the chronological information to others. There's all kinds of attitudes out there, including competition, insecurities, jealousy, and just other ways of seeing things that don't fit our own. It is not necessary to give them very important parts of out identities so that they can assess them as they wish and then try to push us to internalize that assessment to make themselves feel better.

Don't know if I quite explained it the way I think it, but this is my reason and it won't change. I don't see myself as a chronological age but as a person. And most of us know anyway that chronological and biological age can be vastly different.

So how old are you?

Hi Gina, you do have good points here, I totally feel for you because sometimes I look at the other people from school etc and wonder where the heck I go wrong. Heres a tip for you though, what I always say when a guy asks how old I am. I say, how old do you think I am? if he guesses older, then I walk away, but if he says, 40, 41? I say, oh aren't you clever? lol! 53 really! that way it makes them look good, and you get away without saying it!

Gina, While I did not become a Captain of Industry and have not written, let alone published a Great American Novel, I did beome a parent at age 48. We adopted a two day old child, now 24, out of college and she even has a job. While that marriage did not last, and her (adoptive) mom died when she was six, I am so glad that I did all that, even being a single parent for several years.

Don't give up hope. Is there a mature singles group where you live or a Parents without Partners chapter maybe?

Keep writing and keep hoping.