To be devastated about this minor thing...

Oh I totally get you OP and I feel exactly the same. I got ID’d until recently (I’m late thirties) and it really stings now that I don’t get asked!

It reminds me of being out in a bar once and I mentioned I had children to a gentleman who was speaking to me. He was shocked and said “No way, you do not look like you could possibly have had two children.” And even turned to someone beside him and said “would you believe that!? She looks amazing.”

I laughed along but I was also thinking.. I’m a curvaceous woman in her 30’s, with all the lumps bumps and sags. There’s nothing difficult to believe here. It’s just a bit of flattery. He was never genuinely shocked. Imagine then I was affronted when no one was shocked in future when I said I was a mother. How could they possibly think this body had birthed children?? I must have lost something, where are my people 😂

It's a social nicety. Obviously, nobody is genuinely gasping with shock because nobody really cares that deeply about how old anyone else is.

Joking or not, it's the expectation that people will interrupt their conversation to compliment you on your appearance that is jarring - the sense of entitlement.

I hear you!!
all through my 40s I got the gasps “didn’t think you were xyz… thought you were about blah blah blah” I noticed that reaction stopping in my very late 40s. I did not like the absence!

I have very young kids, I had them late, i think this has kept me on the move, and knocking around with mum’s five or six or ten years younger than me… the kids energy kept me moving…

perimenopause came and I put on weight. Game changer.
Weight is a b*tch.
losing it now, and I think I look younger again, flexible etc, I move like a younger person again!
you can get the GASP back!!

It's silly but I sort of get where you're coming from. I used to live in France in my 20s, and there was a definite shift when people stopped called me "miss" and switched to "madam". I saw it as a kind of rite of passage really. Now if someone calls me "miss" I think they are insincere and want something from me! 😂

Who has ever felt the strong emotion of shock about another person's age?

I can't fathom that at all, how do those people react to actual shocking events?

Ah yes, those of us who face the inevitable with a bit of emotional maturity are all 'sour-faced miseries'. Righty ho.

I think it just smacks of deliberately setting someone up to compliment you, leaning in and expecting it, then being upset no one took the bait. but I usually always get the compliment - maybe they are trying to be polite, because it seems like something you might say to a lady, particularly if she emphasises how old her son is and is clearly waiting eagerly for your reply.

I think you’ve put far too much stock in it over the years. You’re now holding part of your identity in other peoples perceiving you as younger, and you seek that validation.

And it IS important to some — maybe a lot of — people (although I stand by the OP being tongue in cheek). Just because it’s important to them doesn’t mean it has to be to you; nor does it mean they’re not allowed to find it important just because it’s not to you.

But they could have thought you had him quite young and are actually a decade younger than you are.

I can sympathise OP. The other day was in a conversation about birthdays with new work colleagues (slightly older than me). It had just been my birthday so I mentioned my age and nobody was shocked and just carried on the conversation so I thought maybe they hadn't heard and found a way to mention it again but same. Am so used to people thinking I am at least 10 years younger that it was surprisingly painful to realise that now I am just generic middle-aged woman of indeterminate middle-age. So now I am online looking at nanocurrent skin tightening devices and pondering a makeover. Going to start lying about my age too.

And before anyone jumps in to comment about how empty and shallow my life is, value of inner beauty/ageing gracefully etc, this is a joke*.

*but also true.

After illness I now look my age before I didn’t look my age. Suddenly old looking but that’s life.

You sound like Amanda from Amandaland

I was responding to someone who said nobody ever looks half their age, that was my point! Alcohol I understand being stricter on but after speaking to the cashier, she thought I was only 17 🤨

I wouldn’t say anyone has displayed rage at all, that’s quite dramatic. A bit of sass sure. But that’s again, because of your tone. “Oh well if you’ve never been told you look young like I have my entire life..” it’s just a big eye roll, it definitely reads as quite shallow.

Haha you remind me of my mum. I’m 38 and she’s 56. She looks young for her age and obviously had me young so very much enjoys the looks of surprise and the ‘omg you don’t look old enough’ when she reveals my age to people.

one day, like you, she didn’t get her usual reaction and she was gutted 😂

maybe it was a one off op. Hopefully you get your normal reaction next time!

I was going to say exactly the same thing

You can't get tone from reading which is why most people preface these sorts of threads with (lighthearted) in the opening post.

I read it and rolled my eyes thinking you sounded like a right drama lama. Stick a laughing emoji or lighthearted in it and I'm with you as it reads completely differently

That's why you're getting a lot of sassy replies

I still get told I don't look old enough to have a son that's now 45 but that's because I had him ridiculously young. (16). I don't get told I don't look old enough to be the mother of my youngest (33).

This. I suspect we all secretly suffer from it to some degree - thinking we look younger than we do. Agree I very rarely meet someone who doesn’t look their age.

Don't get jealous, but I definitely don't look my age.

Although I'll be 71 in a week or so, I don't look a day over 95.

Your tone was a bit off in your OP, that’s why I didn’t get the humour. Put a laughing emoji in after the “so sad” bit, that might have helped. And your subsequent posts calling us “sour faced” aren’t very nice. Or is that humour too?

I get what you mean, people always used to think I was younger than I looked and when I was about 55 I must have grown into my face! Now I get that nod that says, yes I thought you were about that age 😆

Just because you don't look young, doesn't mean that you aren't and can't be beautiful. I don't understand society's obsession with beauty being associated with youth (I mean, I understand it but I don't accept it). I can remember even as a child noticing beautiful older people. I can still remember the last woman I met whose beauty really struck me. She was well into her 80's, beautiful lipstick and cardigan and just a lovely, graceful, soft and kind way about her and a lovely smile.

Hence, I do not, never have and never will care. I am 53 now and happy to be here with my good health. I look 53 because that is my age. No desire to look 20, been there, done that. Now is the time for a different kind of beauty. Happy that the people I love are happy and healthy. That is all that matters.

And that all sounds rather serious, I do know that you were joking, OP.