Being mistaken for someone much, much younger.

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jamieboy
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02 Mar 2011, 6:25 am

Doesn't this happen to Aspies all the time? I am used to being taken for a few years younger but i was in the opticians earlier and got into a convo with a guy in the waiting room and he asked me whether i was "still at school?". In a British context that means 18 or younger. I found it very humiliating as i'm 28.



Aimless
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02 Mar 2011, 6:30 am

The older you get the less humiliating it will become, trust me.



jamieboy
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02 Mar 2011, 6:34 am

Aimless wrote:
The older you get the less humiliating it will become, trust me.


I wouldn't mind if i was a 40 year old woman being mistaken for being in her twenties. I guess i feel a manchild in a lot of ways and everytime i am mistaken for younger or especially extremely younger in this case, it hits a nerve.



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02 Mar 2011, 6:41 am

Yeah, I guess it is different for women.



Pandora_Box
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02 Mar 2011, 6:46 am

People ask me if I am in high school. Its a little weird. But good.



KBerg
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02 Mar 2011, 6:57 am

Dude, I'm 34 and I have on occasion gotten asked if my parents were home! Some people just aren't good at telling people's age. As one of those people who have problems telling age, I try to be understanding when it happens to me.



YellowBanana
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02 Mar 2011, 8:05 am

Happens all the time. I'm 37 and still get asked for ID in pubs the once in a blue moon that I go to one (legal drinking age here is 18 ) ... and I don't even drink alcohol ... all I ever want is water or tea or occasionally a soft drink...

If I'm in an environment where we're supposed to work in groups I'm often allocated to group with the 18 to 25 year olds, rather than with folk my own age.

I don't mind physically being mistaken for a "youth". I do mind when people treat me accordingly (or worse, like a child) and assume I don't have the knowledge/experience of many more years just because I struggle with the social interaction.



OJani
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02 Mar 2011, 8:31 am

I also tend to be regarded a few years younger. Just today 32 vs. 37, and I can not tell if that number was true or "rounded up" :)

Last evening I had an appointment, and the girl once did the freudian slip, mistaken "guy" with "boy". We smiled :)



tasbro
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02 Mar 2011, 9:06 am

I am 26, and not only do I look young, but I'm very short as well. The only time I don't get carded for alcohol is when the store cashier is around my age. The most annoying part are the stares I get from people while I'm walking through the store with a case of beer in my hand. Sometimes I will even overhear people commenting that I don't look old enough to drink. Having AS makes it even more annoying, because I feel like everybody's eyes are on me while I'm walking through the store, and it makes me a nervous wreck.



02 Mar 2011, 9:38 am

I think I get mistaken for being younger as well, but I don't carded all that often. Besides looking younger, I feel younger too. I can honestly say that there are many times when I will think that people who are younger than me are older. I recently befriended a guy on facebook who's colored & cut my hair the last couple times I been to the salon. I figured he was maybe 5 to 10 years older than I but then I figured out he was my age. In the last 2 or 3 years I've also been kind of bullied by teenage boys. At the mall once some kid was tyring to block me from walking by him, I had to push him out of the way. Then another time I was at the gym and on the floor in the stretching area, and there were a couple boys there throwing a ball of wet paper towel over a short wall into the stretching area because they knew i was in there. It didn't him me but landed on the floor. When that happened another girl in there wondered why it happened. There also other times when teenage boys who see me walk by when I'm at the mall will say "hi". I think they wouldn't do it it I were an NT.



Mdyar
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02 Mar 2011, 10:01 am

A few years ago a woman was surprised I knew of news events years ago, as in of my experience of it, and then asked my age (44), and she said," I thought you looked around 29."



Zen
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02 Mar 2011, 11:20 am

People asked me what grade I was in until I was almost 30. This reminds me though, I remember my mom being very amused when someone thought she was my dad's daughter. :lol:



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02 Mar 2011, 11:32 am

30 in a month and a half. Got asked last week if I were 16. :x Normally amusing, but this guy could have been my grandfather and seemed to take my irritated dodge of the question as license to hit on me.


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jamieboy
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02 Mar 2011, 1:53 pm

It's an AS thing then. I feel mildly comforted. :)



starygrrl
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02 Mar 2011, 2:01 pm

I get the "what school do you go too" (this is the US, so it means University) which means I am often aged in my late teens/early twenties, I am 32. I have been told it is also often how I act this happens.



KenG
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02 Mar 2011, 2:04 pm

Aimless wrote:
The older you get the less humiliating it will become, trust me.
True. I am 41 and most people assume I am in my twenties. I am very happy with this.


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