Baby Face

Two things happened to me within the last month which have forced me to accept that I look younger than my twenty years. While I'd always heard from people that I looked maybe a year or two younger than I actually am, that I looked like somebody in senior cycle at secondary school rather than a second year college student, I'd never really paid much heed. I certainly couldn't see it when I looked in the mirror, and besides, people assuming I was in fifth or sixth year instead of senior freshman Law and German was, at best, amusing, and at worst, mildly irksome. Sadly, my living in ignorant bliss about exactly how young some people seem to mistakenly think I am came to a screeching halt thanks to these two recent occurrences, causing me to become hung up on my apparently youthful appearance.

"Let me show you to your table", the young waitress smiled. It was a mid-November Friday evening, and my parents, brother and I had headed out to dine at a nice restaurant in Drogheda. As the four of us sat, the waitress said to my mum, "I'll bring you along menus now. Would you like the kiddies' menu for the children?" and gestured towards me as she uttered the words "kiddies' menu". I was incensed. Dad smirked, Mum was rendered speechless and looked towards me nervously, awaiting my reaction, and my brother Dara, four years my junior, grinned. I was the first to break approximately eight seconds of thundering silence. "I'm twenty", I explained smoothly, as though the waitress were a dense toddler, "so I really don't think that would be appropriate."

"Oh!", came the waitress's surprised reply. "That's so embarrassing, I'm sorry, I'm only twenty-one myself!" With that, she scuttled off, and sent another waitress back with our menus. By now, Dad's shoulders had started to shake with laughter, and I had launched into an amused albeit miffed tirade about how I was sick and tired of people thinking that I am at an age which qualifies me to eat sausage, beans and chips (in this case, ten and under - seriously).

So aghast I was I even went as far as posting a Facebook status about this little incident, something I tend to reserve for very special occasions only. It got fifty-five "likes", and unfortunately I'm not sure if this means that fifty-five people simply found the waitress's faux pas amusing or whether fifty-five people agree with the waitress on me looking like a fourth class pupil. Of course, I've had this happen before, but never before have I had anyone so brazenly mistake me for someone so young. When I was sitting the Leaving Cert, people thought I was sitting the Junior Cert, and when I was sitting the Junior Cert, people tended to think I was still in first year, and so on. That, I could handle. And everybody is going to look juvenile in school uniform, anyway.

It's starting to become a little more embarrassing, though. Or so it did two months ago, anyway. It escalated last week, on the last day of term. I came rushing out my front door, weighed down with a suitcase, a backpack, and my cumbersome laptop and its replacement keyboard, determined to catch the last bus for the next twenty minutes into town. Still running, I stuck out my hand as the bus pulled up to the stop. As I clambered aboard, sweaty and breathless and patting myself down trying to find my ticket, the driver leered and quipped, "are you running away from home, love?!" Having found my ticket, I validated it, chuckled weakly, and proceeded to haul my case into the luggage rack and find a seat. Twenty minutes later as we approached my stop in town, I made my way back to the luggage rack at the front of the bus to tussle with my case.

"Are ya heading home for the weekend, love?" he asked.

"Yeah, I am! Back to Louth!"

"Ah you're from Louth; a wee lass from the the Wee County! Are ya at college here?"

"Yes, yes I am!"

"And where are ya studying?"

"Law and German in Trinity..."

"That's gas, love, Sure don't ya only look about twelve. Ah sure look, you'll make some lucky man very happy someday!"

Why, because I look twelve? I wanted to ask. Instead, I chuckled moronically again, and disembarked wishing him a happy Christmas. I remained dumbfounded for the rest of the afternoon and my mouth hung so far open I'm surprised I didn't catch flies. People had now moved on from simply confusing me with someone who still believes in Santa, to actually going out of their way to point out that I look childish. Fantastic.

And what is it about my appearance that causes people to fall under this misapprehension in the first place? It's not as though I wear my hair in pigtails and carry a lunch box. Okay, I don't wear a pick of make up save special occasions, but would a layer of foundation and some mascara really add five years onto my appearance? Probably not. I'm now perennially plagued with doubt about my appearance thanks to Menugate and that "character" of a bus driver, and my mind is filled with so many questions. If I look twelve now at the age of twenty, how old did people think I looked when I was actually twelve? Four? Is this why bouncers who man the doors of pubs and nightclubs so often ask to see a bank card or health insurance card with my name on it to back up my ID, and not just because they're "strict with everybody" as I had always thought? Will I look thirty-two on my fortieth birthday?

Dad says he suffered with the cursed baby face when he was at college, too. Even though he was often left red faced when he got refused entry to licensed premises for looking like a character from an Enid Blyton novel, he says it stands to him now (it doesn't). I can, however, take solace in the fact that when you Google "having a baby face" you are met by a Yahoo! Answers page where most people say that it means you have soft skin (a plus in my book) and a round face (hmm) and that it's generally a good thing. I'll take that. Even though I don't really believe it.