I am not a number!

It was my 34^th birthday a couple of weeks ago. Most people’s response to this was not a joyous congratulation, but rather a sympathetic concern for my wellbeing, like I’d just announced that some terrible woe had befallen me. But that wasn’t what bothered me most about it all.

I can’t deny it’s weird to think of myself as this age, and I certainly don’t feel it, but I’ve come through a lot to get here and I’m proud of it. I don’t think I’ll enjoy getting officially old, once it starts to affect my mental and/or physical capabilities, whatever the numeric definition of that turns out to be. But I’m finding ageing while remaining reasonably in control of all my faculties is a fantastic experience. I’ve been a late bloomer throughout life, and I only really started growing into myself and taking bigger risks in my late twenties. I’m finding all those magazine clichés of growing wiser, more rounded, accepting, confident and comfortable in my own skin throughout my thirties are, like most clichés, repeated so often because they’re true. So I love being 34, and I feel I’m only beginning to reach my prime and be ready for anything now.

Except for one problem. It’s an issue that I probably should be grateful for, but it’s that I don’t look 34. Most people are surprised when I tell them my age, but their estimates are usually somewhere in the mid twenties. I can live with that. It’s a reasonably mature age, and it doesn’t interfere too much with my life. But four days after my birthday, for about the fifth time this year, I was asked to produce ID by a shop assistant to prove I was over 18.

This has been a fairly regular occurrence throughout my adult life, and while it has decreased in frequency, I can still expect it at least once every couple of months. It’s happened considerably more since I could legally buy alcohol than it did during the many, naughty times I had done so before. In my late teens I took it as an opportunity to show off my shiny new proof of age. It became embarrassing in my early twenties, funny in my mid-twenties, and flattering in my late twenties. But it’s just getting stupid now.

I don’t get it at all. I might not look 34, but I definitely don’t look 17. I don’t even look 21. Shops tend to have such crap fluorescent lighting that’s hardly soft focus. I once briefly noticed a pattern of middle aged, mumsy women being accountable for a higher percentage of it, but there’s been numerous times when the person behind the till has laughed or embarrassedly apologised upon being presented with my date of birth, because it’s 10-15 years before theirs, and even they can legally buy alcohol. I’m biologically old enough to have a 17-year old daughter, and have met people my age who do. It doesn’t even provide funny anecdotes any more, because everyone else is bored with it too. Enough’s enough.

So, to all the shop assistants out there, please stop withholding my beer and/or treating me like a child, or you may become responsible for a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby I regress to my angry teenage state; or a full on, Michael-Douglas-in-Falling-Down-style violent episode.

Obviously, it’s a silly thing to complain about, and it’s good to look young. You would think it a particular advantage in a modern world where it seems to be a lot of people’s main goal in life. But to be honest, looking too young is just a pain in the arse.

The trouble is, when people assume you’re 17, they tend to talk to you like you’re actually 12, making it very difficult to be taken seriously in many situations. I’m regularly accused of being a liar just for stating my age, which always baffles me as to what possible reason anyone in their teens or twenties might have to pretend to be 34. I’m sick of having to fish out my driving licence and share my personal details and bad photo with strangers when I’m already in a hurry and carrying loads of stuff. Then there’s the 18-25 year old males who, during their attempt to chat me up at a bar, discover their error and make a panicky retreat. I wouldn’t want to go out with them either, but at least spare me the palpable horror of their reactions. Meanwhile, men in my own demographic don’t approach me because they’re worried they might get arrested for it.

I wouldn’t even mind so much if I could see it myself, or if I hadn’t aged, but it’s clear to me that I have. I see my graduation photo regularly in the homes of my family members, and I look like a cherub in fancy dress, so I can understand how I might be mistaken for 17 back then, though I was 23 at the time. But a few weeks ago, I was looking through some photos with a friend from when we’d first met five years ago. I was 29 then, and I still didn’t look anything like 17. Yet I did look considerably younger than I do now. But I’m still required to prove I’m over 18.

The mind boggles.

I admit in some ways I don’t help myself. I still dress exactly like I did as a student, and I refuse to get any sort of sensible, grown-up haircut that I would have to spend time styling. I have pasty, sensitive, paper-thin skin, meaning that I do still get spots regularly, and I don’t cover them with make up or fake tan, which probably isn’t helpful to my protest. But, exposing my Celtic skin to all weathers, gravity, chemicals and bad dietary habits amongst other things has also caused me a few wrinkles, and it shows all the signs of working regular night shifts in my inappropriately-named day job. I pity all those 17-year-olds with frown lines and eye bags that the staff in off licenses and supermarkets must be confronted with regularly enough to mistake me for one of them.

In another ten or twenty years, maybe I’ll be more grateful if people still think I’m 15 years younger than I really am, but by then, being 15 years younger won’t halve my age, and I’ll still be a fully grown adult, even in their obviously defective eyes. But for now, I’ll just have to try and take something positive from it, and make a new goal in life to be asked for ID at 35, which will surely break a record, or at least make me worthy of an award of some kind. I’ll celebrate its ridiculousness anyway.

Just so long as it doesn’t happen too many times in between. Or after. 

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