The Drunken Blog

Ever since I left the safety net of school I have come across a problem that I’m sure is not unique to me, and that is that I suck at gauging the age of girls. To be sure, this problem was around in college and before as well, but it’s really only a problem when you go out to the bars. In class you were never far off because you had a point of reference.

Having a point of reference makes a huge difference in terms of being able to guess somebody’s age. In grade school, for example, if you guessed and were off by 6 months, the receiving party would be offended. I mean, if they are in your class, they are most likely in the same grade as you, and if they are in the same grade as you, they were probably born the same year that you were.

In college it’s the same principal, but not as precise. You know that the girl is probably around the same grade level as you, but the difference in age is not as big of a deal as it is in grade school. When you go out to a bar it becomes even more difficult to guess an age. I started going out to bars when I was 19 because I managed to get a great fake ID. It was kind of weird going into a bar and knowing that I was probably the youngest one in there. However, I’m sure there were some girls that also had fake IDs, but you still have to assume that everyone is at least 21.

When I first started going out to the bars I wanted people to know how young I was, it was so cool for me to be in the bar, so I would ask questions that invited them to ask me how old I was, and I would answer honestly. Well, I quickly learned that girls don’t really like guys that are younger than them, in most cases. Nothing really surprising there, but it cemented the idea that had been floating around for a while, even though in high school I dated a girl that was older than me (albeit, she turned out to be a lesbian).

A saving grace to the college bar scene was that it was just that, it was a college bar scene, which means that most of the people there are in college, ergo, they are around your age. This made guessing their age somewhat easier, although I still sucked at it.

Now that I’m out of college I find it increasingly difficult to guess a girls age. I no longer go to college bars, and the crowd that comes out reflects that. Whereas before the oldest person you would normally see is 30, with the bulk between 21 and 24, now the average age is probably around 30. I don’t have classes that I might see people in to help me gauge their age as well as their friends anymore. Now I may see people from work out at a bar, but that is hardly a point of reference. If I see a girl at work and I want to know how old she is, I check her profile on the company intranet to see if she has a résumé to check the year that she graduated from undergrad. And then if I see her out with friends, I can’t even assume that her friends are the same age as her.

I even have trouble making a distinction between girls that are just learning to drive, girls that are legal, and girls that are legal to drink. I really think that girls should have to wear some sort of color coded bracelet to show the last age barrier they broke. Red for 16 year olds, because red means stop, and if you keep this up you’re going to jail, so you better stop. Yellow for 18 year olds. Yellow means caution, you may proceed, but you can’t get her drunk, and if she’s only 18, she’s probably going to be some sort of trouble, of course, how much trouble she is depends a lot on how old you are. Of course, 21 would then be green, because you’re in the clear. There’s nothing you can’t really do with this girl, and she’s had some experience so you won’t be taking advantage.

I first had a conversation about these markings my senior year of high school. I remember some friends and I went to Disney World (I think – whichever one is in Florida). I was 17, but all my friends were 18, I felt like hot shit being there because I was old and everybody else was so young they had to be with their parents, suckers. Of course, I had to borrow somebody’s ID so that I could get into the club, but that’s beside the point.

One night we were at the hot tub at our hotel and we saw some cute girls. We started trying to guess their age. I figured they would be around our age, maybe a late 16 or early 17 at the youngest. After much debate we eventually went up and asked them, these girls had just turned 14. I was shocked. Especially since a few years at that point in your life makes such a huge difference. I felt dirty just ogling the girls like I did.

I’ve also done the exact opposite, too. I’ve been to a bar in DC and I started dancing with some girl. I eventually started making out with her on the dance floor. She apparently thought that I looked young so she asked me how old I was. I told her 26, which has become my standard bar age, and I’ll explain that in a minute. She just sort of laughed, so of course I asked how old she was, she said she was 32. I think I was 21 at the time, making that the biggest age discrepancy of making out in my entire life. Granted, the light was low and I was drunk, but I wouldn’t have thought she was that old (btw, she was a horrible kisser…).

When I was in Vegas I hooked up with somebody that was 8 years older than me. For the life of me I would have guessed that she was my age (which was 21 at the time), but once again, I’m a horrible guesser of ages.

Now, you’re probably wondering how I came up with the age of 26 to tell people in a bar. This works on several assumptions. The first of which is that girls don’t like guys that are younger than them, the second is that all of the girls in the bar are at least 21, the third is that she is drunk enough so that I can pass for 26. And the final assumption is that I will never see this girl again. I’m currently 22, but if I tell that to a girl, chances are the girl will be older than me, that’s just how bars work, there’s about an even distribution of each age group from 21 to 30, which means that about 80% of the people in the bar are older than me.

I tell people 26 so that they don’t think that they’re older than me. If it turns out that they are actually older than 26, well, it’s been my experience that if you get that far into a conversation with somebody that is that old, they don’t care if you are younger, in fact, they probably like it better that you are younger than them.

Twenty-six is old, but not too old. If a girl is 21, she can get creeped out if there is a guy a decade older than her that’s hitting on her. If I say I am 26, I may be on the outer edge of too old, but I’m still inside the cutoff. From my experience, it’s better to be five years too old than two year too young.

The third assumption is that they have to be drunk enough to believe that I am actually 26. I have no idea how old I actually look. Some people say that I can pass for 26, others can’t believe it. Of course, a lot of it depends on if you knew me previously, or from some other context which would help place my age. Something about being introduced to somebody as a certain age makes them become that age to you, even if they don’t quite look the part. In reality, the girls don’t even have to be drunk, if I just tell them that I am 26, to them I am 26. In addition to the other reasons that I have mentioned, when you say you are 26 you instantly get a boost to the maturity and credibility departments. Younger girls assume that older guys are more mature and more responsible, so just by lying to them and telling them you are older than you actually are, you instantly get extra credibility, which helps you out.

While just telling somebody that you are older than you actually are will get you a long way, you have to act the part. If you are going to say that you are half a decade older than you really are, you can’t act like you are 16; there are certain things that are expected out of people that are certain ages. You don’t have to be spot on to these expectations, but in the same ball park, at least. You’d be surprised how forgiving people are when they don’t know any better (it doesn’t hurt that alcohol is involved, either).

As far as the fourth assumption, that I will never see her again, I think this is pretty self evident. If I see her somewhere else she’ll know that I lied to her, and having girls know that you lied to them is the worst thing you could possibly do.

Other posts by Justin

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 2:05 pm and is filed under good times, crazy theories, observations, alcohol, girls . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.