When you are told you look exactly the same as many many years ago

So everyone looked 30/40/whatever age they are now at 20??!!

I get told this a lot. I absolutely take it as a compliment!

"not a boast" 😂😂

It's more of an observation than I compliment I think. I get this when I go back to my home town "you haven't changed since school". Considering I was bullied for my general ugliness at school I don't see how it can be a compliment, but it's true, I have exactly the same hair colour, hair cut, style, I still don't wear makeup and have never changed my appearance so I know what they mean and don't take offence.

I'm constantly told it. I see it as a sign I'm the same weight with the same hair, haven't updated my wardrobe since the early 90s and it's dark in the venue.

I get it a lot because I have kept my figure slim, my face is holding up well and my hair is the same style other than when I used to have big permed hair in the mid 80s!

I get it all the time, but I think it's more because I've kept similar hair, weight and clothing styles over the years. It's not because I'm amazingly youthful or anything. So, I'd say it's a pretty neutral statement. Might just be something people say when they haven't seen you for ages, too.

People honestly mean this as a compliment. If I said that to someone I'd mean 'OMG, you've hardly aged and you still have the same lovely way about you that I remember from decades ago'.

Also, some people's faces, even when they're much older, are just instantly recognisable. My dad is 83 and I have a studio photo of him smiling when he was a small baby, maybe six to eight months old. Everyone - everyone - who sees it immediately says 'Oh, that's your dad isn't it?' because his smile is exactly the same now as it was then. We also had a competition at work where we had to try and guess whose baby photos were whose, and everyone guessed mine immediately even though my photo was one of me that was taken when I was 24 hours old.

My style hasn't changed significantly through adulthood. I don't tend to change haircut/ colour or wear much make-up to change my look around. I'm not particularly fashionable and my size hasn't changed signficantly.

I was recognised in a pub at 30+ by a classmate that I hadn't seen in at least 12 years. It was 50 miles away from where she knew me so quite a random encounter. She looked great but had matured since 18 and I wouldn't have recognised her. Not a negative change at all, she had just changed her look more over the years. But I was easy to recognise in a random context because my look had stayed consistent.

People will tend to pick up on specific positive changes e.g. I love your hair. Saying someone looks the same is generally neutral to positive in a world that values youth.

Some people do though! They just have this unique look - you can pick them out in a nursery photo to an old people's home.

It doesn't mean you look the same age, necessarily.

Haha I have been told this recently, which was nice of course but also I wanted to say ‘come on, I have definitely aged’. But yes my hair and weight haven’t changed much over the years, so that’s probably why!

I get this a lot. I have clearly visibly aged but when people say it, I think they mean more the essence of who you are rather than looking exactly the same

I would take it to mean they haven’t changed their look, not that they haven’t aged as that’s impossible! I don’t think it’s a compliment or an insult, just an observation. How you take it depends on how you view keeping to one look.

Is this a stealth boast? Why would staying slim make you boring?

I’d say it’s a compliment.

I had this for years but everything has slipped over the last couple of years!

I get told I look the same. Still short, still fat and bespectacled 😆 now grey haired, but my face hasn’t changed that much outside a few lines and I still wear excessive amounts of lipstick.

It is a compliment, I think. Recently saw an old flame of mine, and he was almost unrecognisable - he had been very ill, had become very thin and had difficulties with walking. Same nice guy but sad to see him like that.

OP, it’s a nice way of saying you look well. I get it sometimes, but I don’t think it’s true.

My 80 year old Aunt has looked the same for decades. Of course she's visibly aged but she looked much older than her years when she was in her 40s and basically stuck with that 'look' in terms of hair colour and style, clothes, weight ever since 😀

It's a compliment of sorts, to be taken in context. People I haven't seen since leaving school in the mid 80s say it about me if we meet by chance, because my face and hair and figure are recognisably me, in spite of the expansion of the latter. I could say the same about some of them, while in others it's more difficult to identify the teenagers I used to know, not necessarily because they look so much older, but because they look different.

Compliment- apparently it’s my smile 😃 <cheesy grin>.

Some people have a particular look about them that’s recognisable as they age. Of my school cohort, one still looks quite pixie-ish, another still very calm. One is very direct, almost challenging as she looks at the camera. Others I can’t work out who they are at all!

Some have aged really well, and look much better than they did. I wouldn’t use ‘you haven’t changed a bit!’, for them.

I'd say that's a compliment for sure.

I've been told this. I find it hard to take as a compliment as I was pretty gawky and unattractive at school and I like to think I've improved!

It is a compliment imo.

You still look youthful, definitely a compliment.