Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Age poll

Enjoy it while it lasts...I'm 2nd year college and people regularly ask me what high school I attend. -_-

Jen

Sorry, can't do this poll, because I don't care who knows my age - which isn't an option in part 2.

I'm 42, if anyone's interested.

And lol at those who can't remember. That's the advantage of being born on a '0' year - it's easy to calculate your age.

Yvonne

I'm with Yvonne. I couldn't care less if people know my age. It's 36, BTW.

I too am one that has to calculate how old I am if someone asks... for myself, my husband, son, sisters.. actually anybody that I know when I ask someone when their birthday is I want the yr that they were born too so that I don't make an embarassing mistake.

Yay for being born in a 0 year . Since I was born in the last month of 1980, though, sometimes when I am calculating my age that way, I give myself an extra year by accident. Just today, my friend asked me how old I was and I told him 23 and then I had to ammend myself. It was sort of embarassing .

- Laura

I'm another person born in a 0 year, 1980 to be exact. My birthday is June 16, nearly dead center in the year, so that makes me 23 this time of year. I never lie about my age, though I did routinely until I turned 21. (Never felt the need to lie to make myself 18, but 21 was a whole other story.) Now that I'm "of age" I never lie, but I don't go out of my way to explain either. For example, if I'm with a group of people planning our evening out and someone asks, "Are you 21?" I usually just say yes, since what they are really asking is if I'm 21 or older and therefore able to get into all bars/clubs. I don't feel the need to give them my exact age; they could care less. So I'm sure there are some people out there who think I'm a year or two younger than I am, but I didn't lie out of any need to hide my age. I can't imagine that I ever will. I've never really understood the need to hide one's age.

Annie

Jen,
The exact same thing happens to me. I'm a sophomore in college and I'll be 20 this November, but I still get asked all the time "which high school do you go to?" or my favorite, "are you thinking about college?" I feel like replying, "yeah, 20 credit hours worth of thinking."

Becki

LOL Labby & Kri-El - I usually have to calculate my age, also. In fact I almost voted in the 20-25 range, forgetting that I recently had a birthday!

And I rarely lie about my age, except to not tell my students when they guess correctly - but that's more of a habit than anything at this point

I'm 25, almost 26. I don't lie about my age, because people don't believe me in the first place.

I've found that it's easy to remember my family's ages. My oldest brother is 1 year younger, so that's easy. My middle brother is a bit harder, being 14 years younger. My dad is exactly 20 years older than me, and my mom is 20 years older than me or my brother, depending on the time of year. My husband's mom was born in 1950, and his dad is exactly 10 years older than my dad - give or take 3 days. It's my husband's age that gets me confused sometimes! 3 1/2 years older, and it has a tendency to throw me off.

I don't tell. Someone says ASL and I say I don't tell/Girl/I don't tell. That's all there is to it. (Unless I *really* like you and we get along well. *Then* I might tell. )

LOL Anni! On chat lines where I don't really feel comfortable sharing ASL (or if some twerp IMs me and I don't know him/her at all), I usually say
'old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway/guess/not with you' or some other smart-aleck reply. Sometimes I play with the guy - pretend to be a guy (a gay guy, just to make it more fun), or act like a girl all along, and then say, 'well really, I'm a guy' (and see how fast he disconnects!), or some such like that. Not that I really get a lot of unknown people trying to IM with me...

Melisma (giggling, under her Rock, as she remembers the last time she did that - she was pretending to be a gay guy, and it turned out the guy was gay too... *Hello*! )

This is slightly off topic to the original question, but when I answered I wasn't thinking about lying to people about your age online, and this brings up a concern of mine, so I thought I'd respond again.

I only talk online to people I know in real life or to folcs. But lately I've had a lot of random strangers IM me when I'm on IRC. My standard reply is, "I'm sorry, I think you've confused me with someone else." Half the time, that is enough to stop them, but the other half the time, they are just as happy to talk to me as whoever they were looking for. So my second response is to tell them politely that I don't talk to people I don't know. Have a nice day. Etc.

But lately more and more the content of the IMs are of a sexual nature from the beginning. So when that's the case, I start off saying, "I'm sorry, I'm only fourteen. I don't think I should be having this type of conversation with you." hoping they will apologize and stop. But I was ASTOUNDED by the number of people who will say things like, "You're fourteen! Me too!" My response to that is always, "Great. So if my dad, who's a cop, traces your IP number, he'll find out your really a kid and not some forty-year-old pervert?" You'd be amazed how fast they sign off. <G> But while I find that mildly amusing, mostly I find it horrifying and I worry about all the chatters out there who really ARE fourteen year old girls.

See, Annie, that's why I've always got the +i flag turned on. If they don't know I'm there, they can't talk to me. Of course, you use a more common name than I do, so it may not always work...

I used to think up a bunch of responses to the a/s/l requests when I was in more active, less age-restricted chat rooms. Too bad I've forgotten most of them, it's been too many years since I've gotten one. I've found that everywhere I go to chat now, people hate those, and will often bounce the requester out of the room/channel!

I have found that people have started talking to me because of my IP/domain. It shows where I live (gee, thanks, RoadRunner). And telling people that I'm married still doesn't seem to deter them. *sigh*

Bethy, I have the same problem.

I look a lot younger than I am (it's all in the family). I often let people guess when asked about my age, and it's usually the same thing: they miss it by 10 to 15 years.

Okay, it's more flattering that anything else, especially when, from time to time, you benefit from the "under 15th" prices while entering exhibitions or movie theatres.

So how old am I? Well, there are a few pics online that could give you a hint. So,be my guess!

Carole

Ok, I know what the A and S are in A/S/L, but what's the L?

Isn't ASL short for age - sex - living?

Pelican

I've always thought it meant Age/Sex/Location. Like, where do you live? And you aren't *ever* supposed to tell an absolute stranger where you live, at least, enough information about you that they can figure out how to find you. I get away with telling them what I do because I live in a huge city area (and I actually do not live *in* the city, and I never tell them exactly what part of the area I am), and I use a pseudonym online that has nothing to do with my real name, so they can't just look me up in the phonebook. At least, I think it works... It's important to be aware of your personal online safety, folcs - can't stress it enough!

Melisma (crawling back under her Rock to go to bed finally)

Oh! Of course. Thanks, Mel.

No problem, Rivka - I remember my very first time in a YahooChat room, getting asked a/s/l, and being very embarrassed at having to ask what that meant! Better you ask in a friendly forum like this than in a more hostile environment like that...

Melisma (under her Rock, glad she doesn't hang out at YC much anymore...)

I'm feeling very young :s I'm glad Anna is here. I'm 16. However, the popular "guess" age for me right now is 9. "What grade are you going into? 5th?" I'll appreciate it later...