Why do people think I’m older than I am?

[Rizzla]

And how do I not let it bother me?

Without posting a picture of myself(!) I will try and give some context.

I’m 29 but for last 5-6 years I’ve noticed that in certain contexts, mainly at work and in NCT class, people have assumed I’m older, maybe early 30s. I don’t have grey hair or wrinkles and I enjoy clothes/makeup/nice hair and following trends.

I don’t have a round baby face - my face is quite slim and on the longer side so maybe this contributes.

i also got married and had a baby in my twenties so when I talk about my husband and my son I think this makes me seem older.

BUT I can’t shake the fact I probably do look older than my years but I can’t pinpoint what it is or do anything about it. I’m bothered that it bothers me, but I also know how short your twenties are and to be assumed to be in my 30s already is disappointing!!

what do you think makes someone seem older, apart from looks? Thanks

Hairstyle, mannerisms and clothes are what age people I find

Another owner of a "mature face". I always looked older than I was in my teens and twenties. I got mistaken for my dad's wife on more than one occasion. When I went to uni as a fresher i was asked if I was a mature student. I was 18!

It used to really worry me that by my mature 20s I would look 40 odd. But miraculously my face sort of froze in time and by my early 30s I was mistaken for being younger than my real age. I have high cheekbones which sort of scaffold my face now I'm older but meant I missed out on the cute soft round face that younger girls tend to have.

That has stuck and I'm now 50. I dropped my son back at uni recently and his flatmates remarked on him having "a young mum" which was hilarious.

I think being slim and having hair which isn't overly "styled" helps too.

Same

29 and early 30s is virtually the same thing.

People your age who look older ime are typically very well groomed, neat and well assessorised and look like they've spent money on looking understated. Because these are the things a lot of women don't adopt until theyre older than 20s.

Same as @honeylulu . I used to go motorbiking with my Dad when I was in my late teens but I did look older and I was mistaken for his wife. But I aged very slowly; by late thirties I still only looked late twenties, mid forties I looked early thirties and now, at 60, people guess my age as 45-50 which sometimes feels weird. I'm slim, long hair still and maybe that helps.

I used to hate my bone structure; long thin face with high cheekbones and a pointy chin. I've often been called witchy, I was never pretty or cute and it used to bother me. But now I suppose I do have few wrinkles compared to my rounder faced peers, I have no jowls or neck lines. I still look vaguely witchy but that's okay, I've sort of grown into it.

I've always been mature in my outlook and speech, even when young. I also had a sense of style that has never changed; I wasn't ever a follower of trends and I think all that has made me appear somehow ageless compared to people around me.

Don't despair, OP, you will probably age very well compared to your peers, so try to see your maturity as a positive thing.

Long faces get jowls as well....and they tend to wrinkle more than rounder face shapes.