MY SECOND-YOUNGEST SISTER was an adventurer, and soon she'd be embarking on a trip to Colorado with some schoolmates to explore the nature out there. It didn't appeal to me at all. However, the idea of traveling, even inside the United States, made our parents think about getting us passports. Weeks later, we went to the courthouse to get one for me. The whole thing seemed silly, as the farthest I've traveled was Florida. Still, by logic, it was good to have.
We walked up to the front desk after navigating complicated hallways and requested one.
"How old are you?" asked the stout older woman behind the desk with the fake-sweet personality of Professor Umbridge.
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen? I'd say about...ten."
She smiled that not-so-sweet Umbridge smile.
Eventually, we realized that we needed a photo taken elsewhere first and that we could not acquire one right then and there. But if I were on my own, I perhaps would have suggested that today was not a good day and walked out. Because I was sick and tired of these comments.
***
This conversation is one I know all too well. Wherever I go, people believe it is appropriate to comment on the way I look. A shocking number of these are adults.
When we were younger, people used to mistake Kelly and I for twins. I thought this was weird. We both had blonde hair and blue eyes. I was on the shorter end and she was taller. I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have, before I wanted a twin. Years later, on the way home from Kelsey's birthday party, I discovered a Mary Kate and Ashley book in the car. Assuming it was for me, I devoured half of it on the 40-minute ride home. Twins sounded awesome!
But in real life, being assumed you were your little sister's twin wasn't cool. Here are some of the comments I've endured:
Summer camp, by a fellow camper named Tia at fifteen. "Oh, I thought you were nine."
At an orthodontist I ended up not going to. "Really? You look young!"
A parent in the audience of an event for my younger sister when I was sixteen. "When do you start middle school?"
A coworker: "Holy ****, you look young!" Language and all.
At a job interview (I'm not kidding). "Oh, you've worked in an office before? I wasn't sure because you look young. Did you just graduate from high school?"
I truly don't understand the logic. Maybe people believe that hearing that they look youthful is a compliment because when they get older, they won't show age. (I guess that's something older people are supposed to be ashamed of? Showing signs of a long, active life? Humans are weird.) All it is is condescending. Why on earth would someone want to know that someone thought they were a nine-year-old at fifteen? Why would someone think that's a compliment in any way? (Okay, that comment came from a fellow camper at social skills camp. But still.)
It's not always easy to tell. I can see how a person would look twelve, but I could also look at them from a different angle and see how they might be thirty. Many of the boys in my CT boarding school could have passed for 30 or 40 by facial hair alone. We all have a unique face and body type. Naturally, we all grow at different rates and in different ways. The same goes for me. I clearly look younger in photos from sixth grade, but I guess I also do compared to people my own age, for some reason?
But something strange seemed to happen after about ninth grade: I stopped aging and growing. When I was about to graduate from high school, they showed pictures of us as arriving freshman compared to recent photos during an assembly. I didn't age a drop. I still look pretty much exactly the same to this day. It doesn't help that my body stopped filling out and I appear to be stuck in puberty. My voice has also failed to age much since then.
The point is, guessing age is almost impossible. Lucky for me, I'm not alone in poor judgment. When I joined the SBM forums years ago, there was a discussion thread titled "Post Your Picture." It's a popular topic of discussion. On the other hand, many users are anxious to post their picture, believing they look a lot younger than they are. (See? I'm not the only one who doesn't appreciate these comments.) When I search through them, though, because they eventually give in and post it, I am surprised to find that many of them are mistaken. Even those who do look young don't appear as toddlers or anything.
But the insecurities are there and they initially don't want to post. Why is that? Well, maybe tabloids are partly to blame. They'll post pictures of Carly Rae Jepsen and Adele, side by side, and go, "Can you BELIEVE Carly is older than Adele???" as if that knowledge will shatter the earth as we know it. Notice how Adele is also subtly age-shamed there. I'm not trying to be an angry feminist, but come on. They have different genetic makeup; of course they will appear different at similar times. If Carly Rae was posed in a certain way, wearing certain clothes, she could probably pass for fourteen or thirty, if the proper enhancements were made.
So why are people ashamed of looking young in the first place if we all have unique looks? What does looking a certain age even mean?
It's probably because it makes life harder, especially when it's pointed out to them. I'm not joking, or trying to be self-deprecating. Looking young brings about a whole set of actually legitimate problems. For example: I am in my twenties. I have never been kissed, had a date, or have a guy look at me as a love interest (well, we think a guy liked me in middle school, but we weren't sure, and we were in the same grade so we didn't have to guess how old we were based on looks). When I'm out in public, someone my age wouldn't even think to look at me because they assume I'm, well, younger. Unless I ever find an organization strictly for people my age and meet someone, I may be forced to look about on eHarmony.
There's more: I have to alter my work clothes so that it doesn't look like I'm playing dress-up. I still can't pull off heels because it looks like I've raided Mommy's closet. I get talked down to by some clients at work. (For the record...if ANYONE is old enough to be working, they are old enough to be treated as an adult. This is why I refuse to talk down to anybody, no matter how old. It's insulting.) I won't be able to drink at a bar without getting carded for years, especially considering that when I'm out with adultier adults like my grandparents, I still get asked if I want a kids' menu. And of course, there's also personal insecurity.
Let's talk about Facebook comments. Whenever the average person posts a new profile picture, they can expect about 5-15 comments saying "Gorgeous!" "Stunning!" "You're so pretty!" Some friends get hundreds of "likes" per picture. I've only been called pretty once outside of my family, and that wasn't even on Facebook. That was a client at work who said I reminded him of his granddaughter. So it's also hard to look, or be considered, attractive if you're on the shorter end and look youthful by societal standards.
(Of course, this is a story for a different day. What does it mean to be "pretty?" Who decided what it was and why did we all decide to listen to them? Does a true definition of "pretty" even exist? Can't we all just decide we're pretty in our own way and leave it at that? Hey, that's a good idea. Why not?
Which leads me to the idea of accepting imperfections. Who defined THAT term? We say, "oh, so what if your freckles are imperfections? You should embrace them! Your imperfections make you unique!" Um, okay. I didn't realize that my freckles are a flaw? Neither are most things that just can't be helped. Of course, I should try taking my own advice and embracing the way I look. I think a lot of what we consider to be imperfect comes from our own opinions. It's hard to appreciate beauty when you look at it in the mirror every single day.)
I once heard a quote that says time was a concept invented by man. You can be young at 100, or old at 30. Sometimes I have some awfully deep thoughts for my age, and I certainly don't concern myself with gossip, even in high school. Usually. Age shouldn't have anything to do with it. So why should it matter how you look? There are no guidelines for what one should look like at a certain age. If we all looked the same and grew up with the same faces and heights, THEN people might have a reason to mistakenly think otherwise. Actually, no they wouldn't. Because we'd all look exactly the same. And that's so boring.
There really is no such thing as looking young. Humans invented the concept. Age tells you how long you've been here, not what you look like. But it will continue to be a thing as long as people let it. If you ask me, I would say that we need to apply our energy to concepts like solving global warming and curing cancer rather than categorizing people on what they look like. If people stopped commenting on my look, I would stop feeling insecure about it. We need to realize that we are beautiful the way God made us. It's easy to forget that when the first thing people want to comment on is our appearance. Why? It's the first thing we notice. But that doesn't mean we should do it.
So, lady at the courthouse, job interviewers, hostesses, and everyone else: stop telling me I look ten. It's completely unnecessary and makes me feel bad, like I'm not "supposed" to look that way. Don't comment on how little I look or, even worse, make a joke when you're interviewing me for a job. Obviously I'm old enough to work for you; that should be obvious by the diploma and work experience on my resume. Comment on my writing skills, or the fact that I recently finished a novel draft this past November. Comment on the good social media post I wrote for work to promote the company, or that you liked the card I made for you for your birthday, or something that I do that I have control over. There are too many insecurities about body image and these comments are why. Let's find other things to comment on that aren't about appearance; compliments that reflect who we are. And then, we will no longer have to judge.