It’s gotta be the hair.
So back in July, I was at CONvergence* and some old dude told me I looked 19. He was probably hitting on me.
Then the other day I was walking over to my friend Alexis’s place and a guy–probably middle-aged, I’m guessing–on the Square asked me how old I was (no, I don’t know why; it wasn’t like the question really seemed to arise naturally), and then responded, “NO. You got THAT BABY LOOK, you look 19, MAYBE 20.”
“That baby look”? Me? Is this because I don’t have a chin?**
I had just assumed this was something guys say when they are hoping you will be so flushed with pleasure at being mistaken for, my goodness, NINETEEN, that you throw your panties at them in delight–although personally I find being confused with college freshmen to be moderately insulting–or possibly that pink hair, as my friend Matt argues, just screams “Barbie’s favorite color” so loudly that it automatically subtracts 5-10 years from your perceived age.
But then last night I was at a teacher training session with some people I hadn’t met before, and when I said I was a grad student, one of them instantly replied, “Oh, first year.”
“Ah, no…”
“Second year?”
“No.”
Another person, incredulously: “THIRD year?”
“…Ah, sixth.”
(pause)
“In GRAD school?”
Some of that may have been shock and horror that a person could be in grad school for six years and counting, but really, do I look 22 or 23?*** Or is it just the hair?
And yet, somehow, there are always those two or three students who are absolutely terrified of me. The hair has many powers.
—
*It’s a convention. The guy who played Chewbacca was there, as was Mercedes Lackey, my most favorite ridiculous fantasy author. So were the corset sellers–there are ALWAYS corset sellers at cons–and one of them was selling yarn/ribbon pony falls, which are like fake hair that you pin to pigtails except that being made from yarn and ribbon it’s hardly meant to be convincing, except that somehow when you pin pink yarn to my head, it looks like it really BELONGS there. I love fake hair. Anyway.
**It’s true. I have to pose very carefully in photos.
***I realize one can be in one’s first or second year of grad school at any age, but this seemed to be an age issue.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Could be worse. A friend of mine (http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1046717896 if you can see the photo) managed to get carded last night at a pub. Noting a) the 18 year old age limit in the UK and b) he was the oldest of our little group, this was most amusing. Fortunately, he was travelling in the morning and so had his passport….
August 27th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Ah, Mercedes Lackey! I still remember the lurid, crappily-written fireside psychic sex scenes from the Queen’s Own trilogy. They really, um, awakened me to myself when I was twelve. In a way that the mutant hookers in Total Recall somehow hadn’t.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I don’t know. In two weeks I’ll be 29. It’s only recently people have stopped asking me if I’m am undergraduate student (well, I do work at a university). People have also on occasion asked me if I was my brother’s younger sister, despite a five-year difference in the other direction.
I think it may well be the hair; mid-to-late twenties women are expected to have hair that falls within certain parameters, which probably don’t include pink, and also don’t include “never goes near a hairdresser”. I have to say the real students around here are mostly much better groomed and also more snappily dressed than I ever was (and am).
When I was thirteen, people also asked me if I was a student. There must have been a time somewhere in there when I looked my age, but I don’t know what it was.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Well… I was visiting my parents in NYC last weekend, and they said the guards at one of the museums said they [the guards] thought I was 16 or 19. I’m 26. I’m guessing the jeans-and-tshirt had something to do with it, or possibly that I was obviously with my parents… I guess I should count myself lucky that the only surprise I hear about my advanced grad-school age (7th year, oy) is that anyone has to stay that long.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:48 am
My god, you posted to your blog.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:58 am
You know, at my most recent con, GCBB-VII*, there were no corset sellers at all.
Anyway, I was frequently mistaken for an undergraduate even when I started on the faculty at Southeast. One time I needed something from the registrar’s office, and I went in and found a long line of students waiting at the counter. There were two or three people “working” behind the counter, standing in a group and chatting while the students waited. After a while I walked up and, with some difficulty, managed to get their attention, and said “I’m Dr. Gathman from Biology and…” and all of a sudden there was a flurry of obsequious activity. I pointed out that there were students waiting also.
Perhaps looking young runs in the family. As evidence I submit this pic of your grandmother at age 30.
*Genetics and Cell Biology of Basidiomycetes - 7
August 28th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I was carded until I was 34 and the mother of a 1-yr-old, with hair that was largely silver. Then people started telling me that my grandbaby–that would be you– was just adorable. Literally (well, almost) overnight. And now my oldest grandbaby is mistaken for a 19-yr-old and my 24-yr-old grandbaby gets asked by the secretary of my high school if she is a freshman.
Definitely runs in the family.