I turned 30 yesterday. Nobody besides my family believe me when I tell them how old I am. Everyone else consistently says I look 18 or 19. I do not use make up or any skincare products. I’ve always eaten a diet of junk food so it makes no sense. I’ve always looked considerably younger than my actual age throughout my life, consistently freaking people out when I tell them how old I am. When I was 16, people told me that I looked 9. One of my friends messaged me about this study which said that some people actually do age a lot slower compared to other people, and looking considerably younger is often a sign of that. My appearance got the attention of doctors who were convinced that I had some kind of hormonal disorder, but when those tests came back normal, they were stumped. Whatever it is, it’s not genetic because my sibling looks their age, so do all my other family members on both sides. I used this app called FaceAge (after one of my friends told me about it, curious what the results would be) and it estimated my age to be 18. When I uploaded a photo of myself from 2020, it said I was 16.
I got really sick a little over a decade ago which caused me to be semi-bedbound from when I was 19 all the way up until I was nearing 30. I had heart and neurological problems caused by Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which have since been treated, but because of that illness affecting the blood supply to my brain, I hardly remember anything from my 20’s. My 20’s seemed more like a weird fever dream than anything very tangible (I mostly just remember hospital appointments) and suddenly I’m 30 but I don’t feel 30, physically or mentally. Anyway, I recently thought about the people I knew in school who I forgot the names of. Some of them were a couple of years older than me, and I’m just imagining how old they must all look now even though they aren’t that much older than me, and how they’re probably experiencing slow downs. I look like how they did when they left school now. That just makes me feel really upset for some reason. The best way I can describe it is similar to how you feel about a cat or dog ageing a lot faster than you.
Another issue is with dating. If I put my age on my profile, with my photos, I’m going to look like I’m catfishing or something, even though I’m not. And even then, it’s going to look weird for a 35 year old man to go out on a date with someone who looks like she’s barely old enough to gamble.
It’s a 20’s thing. 30’s will start hitting you hard. You may not think you look old, but you’ll 100% feel it. Like " I need to sleep with 5 pillows sculpted to perfectly fit the contours of my body or I’ll wake up with something random hurting that day.". You learn to embrace it…sort of. Nothing more fun than leaning in to grab something like a fork or glass of water and you lock your back up.
Some people also just age really well, but you’ll start to notice it in subtle ways over the course of your 30’s.
Happy birthday and welcome to the 30s club! I’m getting to the other end of 30 and my advice would be don’t worry, it’s coming for you. If you are eating lots of junk food and not exercising now I would suggest slowly changing that over the next couple of years if you can. I didn’t and I’m spending most of the second half of my 30s trying to get myself in shape and change bad habits cemented over decades.
As annoying as it sounds like it is, try seeing the silver lining if you can. You can’t control other people’s reactions unfortunately so you’re probably going to have to put up with that for a little while longer.
Sorry, slowdowns in your 30s? What are you talking about? that shouldn’t be happening until your 40s or 50s
I’ve got a similar younger than I actually am face, and now that I’m approaching 50, people still don’t think I look over 40. My bio dad was that way too, so I did seem to inherit that trait. I hated this when I was younger because girls (then women) my age weren’t interested, and I have never been interested in younger women.
Once I got married, to a woman a few years older than me, oddly enough, I rather enjoy looking so much younger than my former classmates. Especially since at this age some of them are really letting themselves go.
Whenever people ask my secret, I say it’s because I never had kids of my own, but honestly it’s just genetics, because up until recently I drank quite a bit, still don’t do anything for regular exercise, and like you, my eating habits aren’t great.
You’ll eventually learn to embrace it and the only downside is my wife who’s still beautiful and aging well, does seem to have insecurities because she is starting to look older than I do. I mean I don’t really have any grey hair, although I’m getting more and more white hair in my beard, but if I shaved, you’d never know
I also looked super young for a long time. I am now in my 40’s and as others stated it will catch up to you. Sure I still look younger, but the gap is closing in and things out of my control make my age stand out more, like more gray hair. When I was 30 I was still being ID at bars.
