How often are you way off with your guess of a Jelly's age - how do you react?

I thought for sure that Milkyway was older. Around 30. She’s 17.

@Jude Yup. And I think we had some serious chat Flybering til I discovered that.

I am an older person on fluther. I don’t have problems with younger people on fluther as much as I am reluctant to reveal my age because I think younger people will/might have a problem with me and make assumptions about me because of my age.

I figure @zen to be about 60.
Otherwise I assume about 50% are college kids.
About 25% are retired
The rest sort of approaching middle age.

@josie Are you flirting with me? I’m 84.

@zen
Dude, if you were 84 you would not give a shit about how old Milkyway was, one way or the other.

I’m 103. Does that bother anyone? Does it change your opinion of me?

@josie I laughed, but that is so true – I wonder what the cutoff is for giving a shit – 70? 80? They say 60 is the new 50 – so I definitely would give a shit.

I mistakenly got into a shouting match with someone who turned out to be 14.

A life lesson learned well before joining Fluther is to never make assumptions about a person’s age based upon their behavior. On a website where you don’t know the people, it becomes even harder to guess.

As for the flirting bit, the closest I’ve come is by mentioning on a thread that I would ask a particular Jelly to be my date to a Fluther party. Believe it or not, some of us just don’t flirt here. :)

Fortunately or unfortunately, it’s one of the pitfalls of the internet, you really don’t know who you are communicating with.

@gailcalled But you are also a teenager, not?

If I admit I’m over 84, does that mean you won’t flirt with me any more?

I will always flirt with you.

* sigh *

I’ve not experienced it here but did a few times when in wis.dm and got a little flustered- not due to any flirting but because of the poignant communication and insight even in matters of sex where they weren’t even sexually active kids yet.

There have been a few jellies who are younger than I thought they were. But just one that is way older than I thought he was.

Plus I don’t really flirt (I’m way better at that in real life) nor do I get overly involved in heated debates. I try to treat everyone with respect and I find that in doing so it really doesn’t matter how old anyone is.

[waggles a tentacle @Jeruba]

Zen, you won’t flirt with me because I’m 103? Too bad, you are dead to me. Sorry, that’s just the way it goes.

There was a jelly who made it seem like she was in her thirties (a young avatar). But she was way to wise for that. Eventually, she admitted to being in her 50’s and I was so relieved. The world made sense again.

The thing was, she thought she was giving herself a better chance at being liked by presenting as younger, but I liked her a hell of a lot better knowing her true age. I find that a lot of women don’t want to say their age, because they think guys won’t be interested in them (whether they are looking or not). For me, that kind of coyness is very annoying and completely unnecessary, since it actually makes me like her better if I think she’s older. Or perhaps them don’t want me to like them and that’s why they pretend to be young.

Now that I know @lillycoyote is 103, I am totally in love. I thought she was merely in her 40s. Watch out @lillycoyote. I’ma gonna rescue you from that nursing home, and we’ll drive off into the sunset. Don’t forget your estrogen patches.

Gee, I’ve always thought @lillycoyote was a pup, under 40’s. Heh.

I have been way off on the ages a few times.

I sometimes feel like @lillycoyote stated she feels, I am reluctant to reveal my age because I think younger people will/might have a problem with me and make assumptions about me because of my age.

@zen, please flirt a little with @lillycoyote. I promise not to be too jealous. She’s pretty amazing for 103, you know, and she is also a special friend of mine.

Besides, I haven’t told you how much over 84 I am.

I’ve made so many incorrect assumptions. What the hell, man?!

Multiple people have told me they thought I was much younger than I actually am. I try to take it as a compliment.

I have been surprised a few times both on age and gender.
I think the gender shift is a little more shocking. lol

I announce my age in my profile, 51.5ish now. haha

I am humorously fond of the little bastard Fiddle, I am going to send a few bottles of the locally brewed stout ale to his dorm pretty soon. ;-)

I’ve also been mistaken about gender a few times. Age-wise, I’m usually pretty close. Usually.

I have sometimes misjudged some Jellies to be younger or older based on their questions and answers. I try to avoid serious flirting because I respect my wife and our relationship.

There are some of you female Jellies whom I admire for your wisdom, tact and imagination and with whom I may sometimes pseudo-flirt with an immediate disclaimer.

It would be helpful to have minors identifiable in threads involving the discussion of sexual matters.

I have no idea if anyone’s mistaken me for anything other than my age. I think I make it pretty obvious—nobody’s asked me about my age or mentioned it yet. The Speedy avatar does throw some off, thinking I’m male when I’m all girl. I even put up a real picture of me to prove it!! :D

I’m terrible with flirting—I see everyone as a potential buddy and talk to them that way, both male and female.

Recently found out a male jelly I thought was like, 18, 19, maybe an immature 23 is actually mid-40s.

My beard probably is a give away for Jellies who would be afraid they’d be flirting with a minor.. .not that I am flirted with much, by the way :-(
And there are some female Jellies that I thought were younger then they turned out to be in reality.
And some male Jellies too, now that I think about it.
There once was one that was 318 years young….

I flirt with lilly since forever – she means flirt here in public for all to see. Women: sigh.

I sometimes think that my screen name makes people think that I am older than I am.
Wilma is not a real popular name for a young woman. It’s not my name, but chosen for other reasons.

I’m not in the habit of guessing ages on here, I never flirt anyway so it seems a touch redundant.

I never really consciously think about the age of users, except in cases where I assume a tween or teen based on content and lack of maturity. I guess everyone else just gets lumped as “adult” in my head.

It appears I think as @syz does. Most of you are just adults in my head except for those I know are “kids”.

I have more trouble with my assumption of gender. Occasionally I mistake avatars and user names, too.

@wundayatta Wow! I’ll be waitin’ for you. I been hoping and hoping someone would spring from this joint. @Jeruba, thanks for being willing to share zen with me, you are a true friend. The one night I go to be early all this love springs forth. Did I miss the flirting? Love to all. If I’d known all I had to do was reveal my true age I would have done it a long time ago.

@rebbel, your beard is so cute. Is it fuzzy? Can I touch it?

The first time I had a PM conversation with a jelly was a lot of fun. It wasn’t flirting, we were just getting to know each other. But he just wouldn’t accept the fact that I was 16 and the misunderstandings led to an inevitable end.

Oh and I was way off, he turned out to be decades older than I thought he was but even when he told me how old he was it hardly made a difference.

Awwww :-) @Jeruba , how sweet!
<<< blushes
It just got cut, some four weeks ago, and after a cut it is not very fuzzy…, it needs to grow a bit longer for it to feel like that.

I actually do a pretty good job of estimating someone’s age accurately enough, but maybe that’s just me getting lucky. However, my guesses are based on the things they talk about, like their life, jobs, school…I usually don’t base this on behaviour. I’ll always be wrong if I do that. XD
Not saying that reading on someone’s life, where they work, study or whatever else is the perfect indicator for guessing age, but it is pretty good, I’d say.
I have been way off sometimes though, but didn’t have much of a reaction. It’s like, k, oops.

As for flirting, well when I do that I just go mental. You should see some of what Vunessuh and I say to one another. XD But it’s not because it isn’t serious that it couldn’t be an issue with minors. Some sort of indicative mark might be cool, but so far I’m glad the minors we have here are mature and intelligent. I remember saying some stupid and vile things and having users like BlueberryKid, MilkyWay and Joker seeing it…lol.
Glad we’re all a cool gang here. Also when I mess around and flirt, I don’t care how old the person is, as long as they’re not eleven years old, or dead.
It’s not to say that it means nothing at all if I flirt; but it shouldn’t be taken all seriously either, at least not on the Internet anyways.

@Symbeline since when do you not flirt with the dead?

@Blueroses…oh yeah lol. Remember that time in the chat room we were talking about a buncha decomposing corpses lol.

Based on my birth certificate, I thought I was 64. But just for jollies, I got myself carbon dated. It turns out that I am 64, but that’s centuries, not years. So I was off by about 6,336 years.

Other than that, I don’t pay too much attention to the ages of other Flutheronians and Fluther onions.

@Brian1946 Wow! You had yourself carbon dated? I’ve been considering that. I look at my birth certificate and think, whoa! Is that even possible? Could I actually be that old? And it’s not so much the cost, though that does concern me, but can you get carbon tested with just a swab from the inside of your mouth, like DNA testing, or do you actually have to provide flesh sample?

@Symbeline I am just now remembering some of the crazy crap I’ve seen you and Vunessuh say to each other on chat..

Great Caesar’s ghost, I am inclined to agree. Especially when it comes to NSFW threads. The only use that seems to have is keeping people at work from getting fired, it is not like You can’t look at these magazines until you are 18”. Minors on this site can engage in conversation about all sort of sex stuff their parents would likely not sign off on, or even have with their child at that age. If I were to be at a bus stop talking to some minor about how to have painful and pleasurable anal sex I would likely be arrested or rebuked, but I could be carrying away here all day with a minor on such a topic and not even know it. I think an asterisk or “y” in a small yellow circle or something would give you a heads up that maybe you don’t want to converate about getting your ”salad tossed” on the 5th date.

@Hypocrisy_Central 7th date then?

@Hypocrisy_Central I have a feeling that if there was an identifier that was that obvious (an asterisk or anything else that makes them different from everyone else), we’d have more teens lying about their age when they signed up so that people wouldn’t know there were under 18.

@Hypocrisy_Central

You can’t look at these magazines until you are 18”.

Is that height or length? ;-)

@Brian1946 Haha I was going to say the same thing ;)

@lillycoyote I’ma commin’, I’ma commin’. Got my hog out. Runnin’ good. Just a twee bit of a problem. I can’t remember which way is front! But never you mind. Dey ain’t a nursing home on de planet can keep me out….. or in. In…out… that sure does remind me of sumpin. Wish I could remember wat.

Oh. I got it. These long metal thingies are some kind of head rest. Be there soon. Dang! Where’s my GPS? Double Dang! What the hell is a GPS? Pardon my French.

@Seaofclouds @Hypocrisy_Central I have a feeling that if there was an identifier that was that obvious (an asterisk or anything else that makes them different from everyone else), we’d have more teens lying about their age when they signed up so that people wouldn’t know there were under 18. They are different in the eyes of the law and most of society. I could not be texting with a minor about getting their “salad tossed”, that could lead to criminal charges. Why? Because they are different, that is just the facts of it. Fluther is ran by smart PhDs type people and near geniuses, they can outwit some minor, or am I giving the hierarchy of Fluther too much credit?

@Brian1946 That is 18 years, not inches, not feet, or meters.

@Hypocrisy_Central How do you suppose they double check our ages then? I understand what you are saying about how you would get in trouble for having a sexual discussion with a minor, I just don’t think there would be an easy way for Fluther to verify the information a user states when they sign up.

@Seaofclouds Maybe not the very moment they sigh up unless you have to have a card they could charge one cent US too, but I am sure they could figure out something. I don’t know, maybe have a scan of your driver’s license emailed to HQ as a process of varification or being vetted to enter the NSFW zone. The rest of the site would be open for all. You have to present your card when you buy tobacco or booze.

@Hypocrisy_Central I wonder how many users would actually want to mail in a copy of their driver’s license just to access NSFW stuff. I personally wouldn’t do it, besides, it’s not just the NSFW stuff that may be inappropriate (in some people’s opinion) for teens to be talking about.

@Hypocrisy_Central Fluther is ran by smart PhDs type people and near geniuses, they can outwit some minor. I think you’re giving Fluther too much credit. Ben and Andrew, while smart, are not here much, and even when they were, they probably didn’t have the time to try and figure out the ages of everyone else. Auggie has other stuff to do, and the rest of the mods are volunteers, brought on for things other than their rocket-science credentials. PhD doesn’t mean you automatically know if someone is a minor or not, nor does it mean you’re a genius (really, the number of relatively stupid doctoral grads I’ve known is staggering, especially when it comes to life-smarts). Those geniuses are normally trying to find cures for cancer and advance military weapons systems and other things that involve spending all of their time not being on internet forums. It’s not just that finding out if someone is a minor is harder than you might think, but that it involves both parties doing way, way more work and using more resources than anyone wants to. I love Fluther, but I’m not going to pay for it, nor am I going to send in my drivers license to a site I wish to remain anonymous on. If I don’t have to do those things to access some pretty gritty porn out there, then why should I do that to access a thread on if womens nipple sensitivity is uniform? There are tons and tons of places I can go on the internet that don’t require that kind of hoop-jumping. And yes, people will lie about their age; lord knows I did it when I was underage.

@Aethelflaed Your post contains a fair amount of logic…I’m curious to see what Hypo will say to counter :)

@FutureMemory Thanks.

Additionally, neither Andrew nor Ben have PhD’s (unless I have missed something). Is there a description for a PhD type of person?I was under the impression that either you had a PhD or you didn’t

(And it’s Fluther is run by)

@gailcalled Maybe people who have to intellect to get Ph.D.s if they wanted to verses those who don’t? But even still, a Ph.D. in microbiology says nothing about your ability to recognize psychological maturity levels in humans.

@Aethelflaed Those geniuses are normally trying to find cures for cancer and advance military weapons systems and other things that involve spending all of their time not being on internet forums. Maybe they don’t have the time, hopefully they still have the smarts, to sit about outwitting some minor. Then you do it as many other sites do, you want full access to go everywhere you give up your card info. Then the program does it. I can’t see anyone being squeamish over that, they do it many times over the net. And if all they are being charges for a limited time, 96hr or so is one red cent, that will serve as the 24/7 gatekeeper. Or maybe Fluther should tell merchants all over the US they really should trust that kid when he comes in with a hand-written note from his beloved grandfather who is riddle with arthritis, and is on dialysis and can’t come buy his own smokes. After all, we know how honest minors are in things like that, they are no less dishonest than they are online.

If they don’t mind their minors having conversations via a forum about all manner of sexual matters they can’t throw a rod if they should do it via their iPhone.

or they can go to M.I.T. and find some smarter guys to create a program that can do the task.

@FutureMemory That is what I say about it.

@Hypocrisy_Central I guess my point is that Fluther isn’t the straight-on porn that people are actually willing to pay for (and most people aren’t really willing to pay for much porn, often times, when it asks for you to pay, they just go find another site). And that ok, maybe there are some people out there who could recognize minors. But a) Fluther is a pretty small site, so wouldn’t they at least rather target bigger sites where their talents could go to bigger and better use (and that’s assuming they just do it for kicks during free time, instead of marketing those skills to identify terrorists or something more useful) and b) what makes you so sure some of those minors aren’t geniuses themselves? I understand the fear of being locked up as a sex offender for not really doing anything wrong, but it does take more to be a pedophile than simply acknowledging sex in front of a minor – otherwise, every parent who had The Talk with their child would be a pedo. Sorry, but this just really isn’t a viable alternative to knowing that you might accidentally share a naughty anecdote from your youth with someone who turns out to be 15 on here.