What age am I?

The man in the Indian Restaurant asked my age the other night when I was picking up some take-away food.

I told him I was born in 1973. “No way!” he said, “I’d have guessed about 1965! I was born in 1973 too. Maybe it’s your hair that makes you look older?”.

I was a bit taken aback by all this. I’m suffering a little from male-pattern baldness, so I cut my hair short these days – it seems to be the best way to make it look tidy. I didn’t think it made me look older though – quite the opposite.

When I look at other people, I like to think that I can guess roughly how old they are. Indeed, upon reflection, 35 was about the right age for the man in the restaurant.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I find this much more difficult to gauge. I tend to see someone younger than me looking back at me.

I wonder if this is because I don’t feel thirty five years old?

I’ve never really felt like an adult. Adults act in a certain way – with a certain type of maturity. I suspect to a degree I judge the age of other people based on how they act as well as how they look. And as I don’t act the way a thirty five year old does, perhaps that’s why I don’t see a thirty five year old looking back at me from the mirror.

Do any of you also experience this strange sort of age dislocation?

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