I was at the supermarket, picking up some little pre-mixed martinis to enjoy in the sun, when I sensed the store manager hovering behind me. “Got any ID for that?” he asked, sighing protractedly. I didn’t. “But I’m 30 years old,” I said, motioning towards my face. “See? 30.” He laughed as if I were an over-confident sixth grader trying my luck. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said, scooping up the cans. “Sorry, no can do.”
Right then I felt like kicking over a nearby cereal display, spilling Shreddies everywhere. Think I’m a teenager? Watch me act like one, then. But I’m 30, so…my impulse control kicked in.
People love to say “consider it a compliment!” when you get mistaken for someone a lot younger, but I don’t at this point. I graduated from college nearly 10 years ago. I’ve worked as a journalist and editor for almost as long, been in multiple relationships, and navigated intense life experiences. I own a Hetty hoover. I’ve published a book. I remember AOL! When someone says I look younger than I am, what I really hear is: None of that counts. I still don’t take you seriously. Not that people in their 20s don’t get taken seriously, but I’m a different person to who I was at 24, 25, even 26. I want that to show, externally.
I don’t think I actually look physically younger than 30. But—like other millennials—I possibly give off a younger “energy.”.] My arms are covered in stick ’n’ pokes from my 20s. I look at ease in a cozy hoodie and low-slung jeans. Plus, I barely scrape 5’2”. The way I speak and hold myself hasn’t changed much in the past few years. And I’m not alone in this: my friends, who are broadly the same age as me, could easily be five years younger. My fiancée is a full-time musician with bleached blonde hair and a penchant for motocross jackets. As a kid, I didn’t picture 30 looking like this. My high school teachers were 30. We definitely look different from them. We act differently from them, too.
Much has already been said about millennials’ inability to “grow up.” We’re lambasted for not owning homes or having kids soon enough (who can do either of those things unless you have a hefty two-income household and/or an inheritance?). We’re living with friends and roommates like overgrown students for a lot longer (plenty of my single friends can’t afford to live alone). And things like marriage, or toiling away in the same career, appear to have lost their shine for many. Even so, that doesn’t explain why we don’t always look like the 30-somethings of yesteryear—or why I can’t get served a pink martini in my local supermarket.