I Suck at People's Ages

I've never been good with ages. I can't seem to remember when my sister was born. When people ask how old she is I tell them, "24" or "25", "I don't know, I forget. She's in her twenties though...and married". Does age really matter that much?

I can never tell how old new people I meet are. As you may be able to guess from some of my photos, I am a fire dancer. Its a fairly new endeavor for me, one that started about a year ago. It is truly one of the only things that brings equipoise in my life. Most people in the fire dancing community seem to either be 35 years old or 18. I feel like I'm the only in between.

Continuously, I meet new people and make an effort to hang out with them in this community. Last night was no exception. A woman I had met once invited me over to her house for a fire jam and cocktails. Completely stoked at a chance to do something random on a Tuesday night, I brought my Bre and brio and headed over to Redondo.

I couldn't exactly remember how old she was. I remembered her being at least 30, but with a young attitude and love for dancing. I rang the doorbell. Yes, she was thirty something, but short, fit, with nice skin and hair, so she seemed younger.

Then I met her friends. They were not thirty. It wasn't so much their looks or the conversation that gave them away. Although they both wore clothes that looked too young for them and one whispered to the other that she had a son my age. Instead, what exposed them was the way they looked at me--like a was a piece of fresh meat. The one with the son kept starring. I felt like a monkey in a zoo, like a freak in a freak show. Since when did 21 become so young. I guess since I started hanging out with 40-something year-olds.

I wanted to dart a malicious glare back, but that would have been rude. After all, I don't think the woman with the son was trying to be rude. Her stares were stares of curiosity, of jealousy, of almost awe that she was hanging out with a 21 year old. I saw desperation of years gone by and wasted as I caught her glances from my peripheral vision. I would have liked to lock her up in a cage, laugh, and point at her through the bars, all the time yelling "oh my god, you're forty!" When I said goodnight to the guests, everyone else gave me a hug and a polite, "Maybe I'll see ya next time", the woman with the son awkwardly hugged me then said with a grimace, "It was nice to meet you, good luck with your last year of school". It was her farewell; she hoped to never ever hang out with me or see me again.

I hope that when I am forty I am better off than these three women were--alone and desperate. In the meantime, I need to get better at figuring out people's ages. I am tempted to set rules for myself to avoid such awkward nights like not going to events unless the guests were born in my decade. Last time this age identification error happened it was with a really cute potential hookup that turned out to be a thirty-something musician moving in a month--no good.

But I'm not really the one that has a problem hanging out with people of different ages; I don't mind it. I think most people can figure out how to relate to one another no matter what their age. Maybe though, I should try to find some fire dancers my own age.