Always without fail get id’d at the age of 33. If I’m honest, I find it really upsetting as I have really low confidence and I realise how pathetic this sounds but it makes me feel like a child/inferior to people my own age. I’m desperate to try and look my actual age. I think a lot of it is because I don’t wear make up or look like the girls my age but wearing make up makes me feel even more self conscious so I can’t win either way!
I go out with my mother and if I don’t have ID then I make her pay as I can’t be bothered with hearing it anymore.
Yesterday in Tesco though, we were still asked who was buying alcohol as they thought she was buying it for me....,her 33 year old daughter
Just had to send a message saying i completely get how your feeling it happens to me all the time and i have to say sometimes i find it incredibly patronising and frustrating.
I also find it to be quite sexist as well its mainly men in my opinion like to talk down to me as if i was a little girl and needed things explaining to me sometimes even very slowly.. (wtf?).
Or which is even worse if i'm with my husband (only 5 years older) they will turn to him and talk only to him completely ignoring me and not even including me in the conversation! Its so rude it beggars belief also he's been accused of being a cradle snatcher and a bit of a perv...
People can be so intrusive and insensitive..
and the arrogance they have without even trying to verify their opinion or to find out if its right or not...
So i hear you and all the other people who have posted it can be a bit of a nightmare and really if i'm honest i don't find that many positives in it...like people thinking my i'm my 18 year old son's sister (he didn't like that either can you imagine?) and also being asked always for id when my real age is 42!!
For heavens sake i actually thought it would ease up but its got worse!!
I think to myself will i ever get credit for being an adult? To make matters worse if their was a school for a life of hard knocks i'd have passed with flying colours so its not as if i don't have some life experience under my belt?
Yet i feel as if i have to bend over backwards to prove anything to anyone because i'm almost afraid that they don't take me seriously enough?
It really can be a pain also i think its a bit of height thing i'm fairly small and small busted and an introvert and a bit shy and i dress modestly its like i scream potential pushover to people (when actually thats not the case) but unfortunately first impressions can not only be wrong but they can stick as well (some very lazy narrow minded people out there sometimes unfortunately).
So i'm sending you and any others who have similar frustrations my love.
I'm glad i found this thread as i honestly feel pissed off about it (can you tell) ha ha
Also for all the well meaning people who say embrace it and be positive i do that as well but i find that when i'm happy or smily or fun i just get stereotyped as kooky or ditzy or a bit of a bimbo (you can't win sometimes?) either that or i get inappropriate sexual attention from men thinking i'm much younger than i am (which creeps me out) and also others who act shocked when i tell them my age and then think that its a compliment when they say i look so young (er why).
I don't know blame our youth obsessed culture in general i guess and also that some people generally seem to fear getting old and being seen as older? (maybe they don't want to be seen as a burden or if truth be told they are scared they are losing their sexual desirability/potency?)
That in iteself is disturbing though no?
Equating attractiveness with youth (i'm sure i don't need to spell that out.)
No wonder our poor teens today feel too much anxiety/pressure over sex and body issues as they get far too much attention focused on them and their needs and fears (i'm sorry but its almost a bit like grooming to my eyes) also all the peer pressure...
So yes its infantilising isn't it?
Almost as if you are being forced into a kind of arrested development and not allowed to grow up or mature?
Also i find that in my case it might be to do with having a strained relationship with my mother who always tries to assume the dominant role so i've just thought that maybe my posture or body language might betray that and maybe other people also pick up on it (just a thought?).
So hey pilates/yoga here i come and maybe some of us get kind of cursed/locked in at the childhood stage because basically our parents where either over protective or in my case just wanted to control me a bit because she always had to be centre stage...
Sorry for going off a bit at the deep end its just that i found responding to your post really helpful in thinking about an issue that really i'd been in denial about but which actually has been bugging me for a while now.
So thanks and i realise that its now christmas day now (i can't sleep) so wishing you and all the other lovely tattlers a very happy christmas and a happy new year..
best wishes
