Also, the question: "How old are you?" works quite well for me.

I'm not very good at judging ae either. I'm often off by 5 years in either direction when I learn someone's age.

So since I know this, I just don't put alot of stock in my immediate impression.

So I won't assume that someone is 25 years old, for example, until I've been told.

You can have alot of interaction and conversation with a person that doesn't require you knowing their age.

And when you are about to talk about or do something in which age is an undeniable factor, it's times like that where I find the question "How old are you?" is very appropriate to bring up.

I hear you Renee. I am well aware that blurting it out at every opportunity can well seem overly curious, and rather rude.

I suppose an example could be:

I was talking to a girl the other day who I thought was mid-twenties. I knew she studied at university, and so, when I was talking about what I did before I started University, I asked her, "Did you do anything before university?" and she said: "No I came straight from the Gymnasium" (Gymnasium is the Danish equivalent of High School).

So that was a good opportunity for me to say: "Oh, I see, so how old are you now?"

Granted, this is a situation where someone turns out to be younger than I expected, which is not nearly as precarious a situation, but still. It's an example of a situation where I feel entitled to ask outright.

Sleestack I think mustard is more worried that he'll make a bad age judgment then accidentally bring a 16 year old home to have fun with, then end up in jail and become a "red dot" on the sex offender website.

Did I hit the nail on the head?

My name's aaron. I'm not an atheist, or agnostic, at least by admission. I am however, violently, intellectually opposed to religion. I would like to explain my sn. I view religion as a crutch that prevents people from being a whole and well developed human being. It is a crutch that was made by man to allieviate the fear's of death, as well as the uncertainties. I admit that I am also frightened by the thought of my own death, as I'm sure most humanity is as well. I, however, refrain from constructing a false set of belief's morals, and ethics to in effect, make me feel all warm and fuzzy instead of the fear that is right and natural. I was up until now, ignorant of the existance of any groups that shared my views in some way and were striving to rid the world of said crutches. It is my belief that the world's technology will not be able to progress the way i feel it should as long as these restricting religions hold so much sway over the world. I would like to extend my hand in aid of this websites goals in hopes that through my efforts, i can kill the "spirit of religion" *fun fact, christians actually believe there is a demon that inspires "religion"* I have always been the biggest fan of science fiction, and when i was younger i dreamed of living in a world where things that were in those books would be a part of our lives, and as iv grown and learned more, iv begun to realize that as the science of man makes more and more breakthroughs, the religiuos are there at every corner to color it and change said discoveries to reinforce and collaborate with their own teachings. I believe this to be a heinious act against the world of knowledge, which is what i am a "faithful" believer in. I have a very small yet braod knowledge of many theostic, philosophic, and scientific fields that aid me in my beliefs, and i have an associates degree in psychology, which i admit, i got with one goal in mind. To find out why the hell people believe some of this garbage. Anyways, Nice to be a part of this site, and i hope to make many great friends here, and hopefully, even greater fellow warriors for knowledge over lies.

Hi fun philosopher crutchlessprincipal. Glad you found RRS. Please use more paragraphs in your writing for us poor readers .... You can usually edit your posts before someone clicks "reply" under it.

  Yeah, Religion dogma SUCKS ... I am god, god is atheist!    No Master.

Asking the person when they graduated from high school, college, etc. is a pretty easy way to determine someone's age, assuming you know that they graduated...

erm maybe its just me but i never have really cared about a persons age... I cant judge a persons age though either so maybe since i cant i have just over the years just given up on caring for peoples ages...idk...

I actually find it easy to judge roughly how old people are over the age of thirty. It's actually between the ages of 18 and 25 that I can't tell. I'm 21 myself, right in the middle of said age group, and I honestly can't tell. It's an age group where people are adults, but do not yet have any real signs of aging. Young women are slightly harder to judge the age of, even sometimes at 30 they can still look 22. I once got very close to pulling a 37 year old at a gig, thinking she was actually younger than me (in fact the only reason I didn't end up having geriatric sex was that I actually had a girlfriend at the and would never actually cheat).

I can't offer any tips really, it's mostly intuition.

Haha, yeah. That's the one. I don't know why I said beyond 28 when I meant before. Must have been tired. I'm actually really good at judging age after 28.

For example, I thought Olivia Wilde (the woman who plays one of the new doctors on House) was 28, when she's actually the same age as me. Plus, I just recently dated a girl who was actually 18 when I thought she was older. Wishful bias?

So to clarify, I'm bad at judging youth.