About looking younger

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I'm in my 40s and I always get told I look a lot younger. People tell me I don't look old enough to have an 18 year old son.

~Kate

I'm always told I look 6 years older. Of course, I've found that if I ask someone how old I look upon first meeting them, they usually guess correctly. If I talk to them for 5 minutes and then ask, they usually guess 6 years older. At 18 I was told I look 24. At 22 I was told I look 28. I have a feeling I'm going to be 28 for the next few years, because nobody wants to say I look 29 (that's one step away from 30) and nobody wants to say I'm over the hill when I might not be. Pansies.

I don't know. Some think I look younger, some think I look older, and others think I look my age. I'm a terrible judge of age, so I couldn't say.

When I was 13-14 people thought I was around 16. I am 23 now and people believe I am still in high school. It's like I hate mid teens fast and then just stopped there. >.<

i apparently look somewhere between 20 and 27 (usually 25), depending on what i'm wearing, and whether i have makeup on, etc. at work they call me Benjamin Button as they say i am aging in reverse.

as a young teenager i looked older, then by the time i was 18 i started to look younger. i kept looking a bit younger until about 30 when i looked my age.

i started to lose weight 3 years ago and i have started looking progressively younger. also around the same time i developed a sun allergy. my attitude about life changed during that period too and i developed a more positive outlook. i wonder sometimes if that makes a difference, though probably not.

i have crow's feet, but my skin does not develop deep lines very easily. for example, until recently i wouldn't get those parallel wrinkles across my forehead when i lifted my eyebrows, and not frown lines either. people found it strange.

How young I look is inversely related to how much facial hair I have. When I have a 2 month beard going, I look roughly my age. When I'm clean shaven, I look like a teenager.

People usually guess I am 18 or 19 when in reality I am nearing 24.

I think I look younger. I'm not too sure on how to judge, though. But I've noticed other women my age have some wrinkles and gray hair, and I don't have those. I'm near 40 and still have glossy long hair that's never been dyed, no wrinkles and in relatively good shape, that must count as younger? I don't think it's an aspie thing, though, just genetics. My mom is 67 and only has a few gray hairs. Grandma is 92 and her hair is only half gray. They're both NT.

I'm 48 and people say I look younger then my age it gets annoying my hands look my age though.
When I was younger if I bought a drink people would ask for my ID and I was older then the person serving me.

Some NTs can look young for their age too. My friend, who is 30 this year, got mistaken for a school child when she was walking to work.

I look 14 rather than 17. But I am very tall, so if they don't pay too much attention to my face, they think I'm in my 20s. My mom, who used to be as awkward as me when she was younger, is the same way. People think she's my sister. o___o

However, I don't think this is specific to autism or any other related disorder. Lots of NTs I know all look different from their age, be it older or younger, usually older and by a few years. Autism is mostly just your brain wired differently, right? Eh... I don't know. I'm not really an expert on the whole thing...

You're right. Nobody looks exactly their age. When I was 20 somebody told me I looked 18, and I thought ''it's only a two-year difference - what's the point of even saying that?!'' When I was 18 I looked exactly the same as when I did at 20, and so do most other people.

I've got an Autistic friend the same age as me, and he looks much older. And I've got an NT friend who is 33 and she really does look about 15 - she really does. Sometimes it depends on what you wear (not always, but sometimes). Ever heard older relatives say to younger relatives, ''oh he/she looks so grown-up in those clothes!'' when they're all dressed up?

Back when I was in my late twenties a lot of people thought that I looked up to ten years younger. My appearance has changed since then so I don't know if this is still true.

I get mistaken for a younger age sometimes. I think it's because of my round face.

When I was 16, I could go into an over-21s bar, unchallenged. Today, at 38, I look more or less the same. I've astounded a few fellow mums who thought I was around the same age as them, when I'm actually 8 or 9 years older than them. I've had grey hairs since I was in my early 20s, which I dye, but sometimes I can't be bothered, so people have seen it. One of my playground friends has a full head of white hair, but people think she's an older mum, when she's actually a gran, so I don't think grey hair really influences people too much when they are guessing ages.

I let people guess about my age. The result ranges from 28 to 36. I'm 38.

When they judge about my face, they're closer, when they guess about my whole appearance (I still have almost flat belly, I've never smoked, I do sports regularly, drink only a little, don't do any other addictive stuff), my mannerism, how I talk, what I do and wear, they're farther.

I'll cite a few lines from Jennifer MyIlwee Myers, from the book "Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships", page 139, (bolding by me):

I was quite shocked I've never heard or read an approach like this before, I thought other people usually have a more effortless understanding of how to live at every age, but the bolded text has some resonance.