26-year-old woman says Grown men telling me I look like a teenager isn’t a compliment – it’s creepy

I don’t look my age, or so I’ve been told.

It’ll be a blessing when I’m older, but right now, looking like a teenager while in my mid-twenties has one major downside: I’m sick of being fetishised for looking a decade younger than I am.

This became all too apparent earlier this year.

I was working in a London park, with my hair tied in bunches in a feeble attempt to cool down in the 30°C heat. 

‘Hey, how are you?’ a man who appeared to be in his mid to late twenties said. ‘I was just passing and you…’ he paused, ‘You caught my eye.’

‘Please leave me alone’, I thought, but smiled uncomfortably. He looked down at my notepad. 

‘Are you writing poetry?’ 

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This was pandemic London, not a Jane Austen novel. 

‘Studying, actually.’

‘Are you about to start your undergraduate degree?’ he asked.

‘Well, actually, I finished my masters four years ago.

This is a professional thing.’ ‘Oh, I thought you were a young teenager,’ he said. 

He then proceeded to ask me out for dinner. I told him I had a boyfriend. He looked disappointed and avoided eye contact with me, as he turned and walked away.

I’m 26, but with minimal makeup, I don’t look much different from how I did at 16.

My face has matured over the years, but I’ve been mistaken for as young as 17 and as old as 30, depending on what I’m wearing.  Would that guy have approached me if he’d known I was his age? Probably not. 

Read more from metro.co.uk