What is so bad about looking younger than your age?

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There is a difference between looking younger and looking like a kid. If I was 40 and people said I looked late 20s or early 30s, I would be complimented. But being 27 and people thinking you look 15 is upsetting. If you look like a kid, people treat you like a kid (if they don't know your age), and other teenagers think you're one of them instead of seeing you as an adult who knows better. I'm not saying I want to look older than what I am. I just want to look in my 20s. Sometimes I worry that I look so young that any proof of age I have might be mistaken for a fake ID because they might look at me and think "gosh, you can't be 27! This ID must be fake!"

Yep, when I was 27 a bar worker did not believe my ID and took my beer away from me, with great anger and haste! THAT wasn't fun, to be humiliated in a public place and I didn't even get a chance to address the situation. It's not all compliments, what happens when people think you're younger.

I agree it is worse when you're in your 20s taken for a teenager -- the automatic disrespect and not being taken seriously is worse.

But the odd thing is, it still doesn't get all that much better when you're in your 30s, 40s or 50s getting mistaken for 20s, 30s, or 40s -- strangely the condescension is still there, the subtle put-downs, the belittling assumptions and "when you're as old as I am you will understand."

In a sense you STILL get "treated like a kid" -- because you're still "a kid" to the person who is assuming you are just "younger than they are".

It seems to never actually end, the way in which someone always wants to use another person's perceived age against them. I've started doing it myself! But only when I'm exasperated by someone who is actually younger not listening to something where I hope my experience might actually help.

But people the same age as me and even younger have talked down to me though I know exactly what they are talking about. That's a very isolating to experience. Your own peers dismiss you based on assumptions, not just actually older people.