Does every aspie look younger?

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i look younger than my age i am told much.
i have speculated about these possible reasons:

i think that my metabolism is rather slow, and that may be suggestive of slower aging as i am not "revving" as high as most people.
i do not eat very much but i maintain my body weight easily.

my hair grows very slowly. i have my hair cut every 6 months. i get it trimmed to collar length at the back, and my fringe is trimmed to 1" above my eyebrows.
6 months later, my hair has grown about 2" all around.

i shave once per week and just before i shave, all i feel is a bit prickly on my chin (i hate that feeling). i do not need to shave my cheeks or "mustache" area (that may be more a hormonal thing mixed with a metabolic thing)

my fingernails grow very slowly. i banged my finger in in a slamming door about 1 year ago, and i got a blue bruise under my fingernail that turned almost black (yeah yuk i know but whatever). over a few weeks, the bruise contracted to a 2 mm dark purple spot near my cuticle.
over the months, it rode along with my fingernail growth toward the end of my fingertip. it took a whole year for it to disappear.

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also i rarely "pull faces" because i am not that "moved" by anything.
i never go out into the bright sunlight except for brief periods. i almost never get in a postition where i have to squint. squinting is a major contributor to many peoples facial lines i think.

i only got sunburned once in my life. i dislike direct sun contact.
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when i lie my face on my pillow at night, i always snuggle into it until i feel no stretching or pressure on my cheek. my girlfriend lies on her pillow and just goes to sleep and when i study her face, i see that she has folds in her face that are created by the position of her head on her pillow.
she does not feel this folding of her facial skin (i have asked her) and is not aware of it. these folds will lead to fault lines that will be the blue print for the wrinkles that will be a feature of her elderly face.

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on another level of thought, wrinkles must be genetic to an extent. all young children have preformed wrinkles on the palms of their hands. also there are little wrinkles on their feet. if i just concentrate on the palm wrinkles, i realize that the wrinkles are areas of thinness in their skin which facilitates ease of grasping.
without them, it would require more muscle power to grasp an object.
and moreover, without them, the dermal layers would be damaged with repeated compression. wrinkles are like hinges that larger skin masses use to easily change position.

so i think a persons face and body are predetermined to develop wrinkles or "hinges" that make movement easier. i guess it may be easier to pull a facial expression with a wrinkly face than it is to pull one with a smooth face due to the fact that it is crisscrossed with hinges.

i actually have no idea about it apart from idle speculation so that is all i have to say.

Well, does anyone here NOT have this problem? Of looking younger or older?[/b]

I'm 23 and look much the same as I did when I was 16 or 17. People tend to call me "cute" because I look younger and act "innocent". (As in not overt and brash. Can't be stuffed to.) They do not realise that I'm intelligent.

I've always looked younger than I am.
Although that may be partly due to me being outwardly timid and the fact that I don't wear makeup. It may also be due to me being born over 10 weeks premature.

It's been the bane of my life, looking painfully young. At 21 people thought I was 14 and I was actually stopped by truant officers in a shopping center (that's "Mall" across the pond). At 27 I went to drop some books off at the school my worked at (she had left them in my flat when she popped in for a cuppa tea earlier). I was waiting in the schools reception and a principal said "now then young man why aren't you in uniform and in lesson this afternoon?". The school was for boys 14-16.

It still continues now, even though I'll be 31 in a few months. I'm usually guessed at 17-20 - late adolescent. It's really destructive; no authority as a man whatsoever. A form of discrimination that go's unchallenged. I don't know what it is, but I think it's cos I didn't start shaving until 25, even now it's patchy (just a a few hairs on the chin) and I have no 5 o' clock shadow, I don't have the 'ruggedness' (esp. the jaw) men do at my age and I'm pale and slim build as well.

Just a few months ago I was playing soccer and the women organizing it all spoke down to me like a boy:

Her: "You've got a good shot on you haven't you. I've got a lad about your age."
Me: "What, you've got a son that's 30, how old are you?"
Her: *SHOCKED LOOK and BEETROOT RED* "My sons 18 and I"m 36. Gosh you look very, very young don't you."
Me: "Yeah.... you'd have to of given birth at 6 to have a son my age."

Later on she passed the info onto her husband and some friends (all about mid-late 30s) and I could lip read the words "as if he's 30" were muttered. Giggles and scornful laughter pursued amongst them.

I read somewhere that this was a possible (though not actually definite) characteristic of several neurological conditions including ADD.

People think that I look younger. It is an advantage at my age.

--des

I have the same thing, i look younger than i am

I'm 24, about to start a PhD, and the average guess for my age is 14.

I was tall and older-looking up until the age of 11, when I completely stopped growing. That means I'm pretty small, which doesn't help. I can't really wear makeup to look older because I just end up looking like a preteen girl who got into her mom's makeup drawer.

It can be amusing though - Whenever I stay at a hotel with my parents they pass me off as a child so I stay for free. When I was back in the US this summer, I went to visit the junior high with my little brother (he's 12), and his teachers asked me what grade I was going into...

Over here in the UK there have been a few instances when I've been stopped by police and questioned as to why I wasn't in school, which is not so much fun... especially the time when I didn't have any ID on me...

But my mom keeps telling me I'll appreciate it when I'm older.

It'd be nice if I could stop being hit on by 15-year-old guys, and if I didn't make the guys I'm actually interested in feel like pedophiles... I actually had one guy stop mid-romance and throw all my plushies in the closet.

My wife and I went out to a restaurant once, and the our server was absolutely insistent that he give us the "student discount," even though we were both over 30 and had informed him that we were not, in fact, students. Of course, we both carry backpacks with us most of the time, so it might be a "look" that's external to our bodies.

I have very curly hair and delicate features. If I didn't have a full beard, I would often be mistaken for an extremely tall woman. Even with the beard, I'm pretty sure that I look like I'm in my twenties. Mentally, though, I've always gotten along better with people 5 or more years older than me. Apparently this is really common with AS: look young, act old.

Most people say that i look younger im now 22 although i look more like 15 to be honest.

I'm almost 28 and still need my passport to buy alcohol or get into a club. It is flattering but also extremely bothersome at times. I was having a little night at home with some friends and realised at the last minute I'd forgotten to buy a bottle of white wine. I was refused the sale as I didn't have my ID on me. My own fault really as it happens so often I should have been prepared and had suitable identification.

I've never thought I looked younger, but then again, I'm horrid at estimating other people's ages. I'm told I look very young, though, and often get treated with less respect, as if it's assumed I'm "just a kid."

Oh, and every time I've been pregnant, whenever I get to the point at which my fingers swell and I have to stop wearing my wedding band, I ALWAYS get mean stares, "tsk"s and grumbles from strangers. I presume it's the "teen mother" thing, heh.

My av is a picture from a couple years ago, and I still look the same. I'll be 31 in August, so you be the judge.

Well, that may be the reason I'm said to have "feminine" features: Young males are not nearly as different from young ladies, so when I look young, I also look a little androgynous.

There's also another reason why this might be a common thing in neurological disorders: Stress, as in orangutans.

People usually think that I'm 16-17 on average...but it depends on what contexts the person has seen me in.

If I've been in a situation where I've been talking to the person, they usually think mid to late 20s because I'm articulate and would rather discuss ideas rather than teenage gossip and drivel.

If the situation calls for silence, I'm usually mistaken for 14 or 15, perhaps because they see my behaviour as adolescent shyness. But I rarely get IDed when I'm buying stuff from the liquor store... :s