Do you find that you can not take someone seriously, unless their face has at least some age-indicating wrinkles?

No, I’m not really ageist that way — mostly since I teach college, surrounded by 18–21 year-olds. Many of them are pretty amazing humans.

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no

No. I listen to the person, not their face.

Plus, my sixteen year old continuously proves she’s smarter and wiser than most adults I know — including me.

No indeed! And it’s a mistake to brush off the perspective of little kids or anyone else unjaded by “experience”.

As someone who has always looked much younger than his age, I can tell you that lots of people do do this probably without even realising it.

On the other hand, I get to brag that I’m 42 and have no wrinkles, and can pass for mid to late 20s.

@Kropotkin – If your icon is a picture of you, I hate to tell you, you don’t look like a 20 something.

No. My philosophy is that anyone can have a good idea.
Consider this: Near the end of WWII, Eisenhower and Patton were having trouble dealing with the hedge rows in France. Germans with anti tank guns would lie in wait on one side and when the American Sherman tanks came over, the Germans would fire a round through the lightly protected underside of the tank. They put out a request for ideas and some lowly desk sergeant came up with the idea of fashioning a hedge cutter on the front of the tanks that would uproot the hedges and allow the tanks to proceed without showing their undersides.
Best to consider any and all points of view!

I don’t trust anyone younger than 60.

Sure. I have always gravitated to older people. Always interested in teachers more than my peers. Older people are more experienced in real life, in what works and doesnt.

Younger people tend to be more passionate, more willing to fight for change, more idealistic, or just completely apathetic.

Even here I feel more connection with the older crowd, and listen a little closer. I seek knowledge and facts, not opinions and dreams.

No. I can take anyone seriously who wants to be taken seriously, and that includes people who are under three feet tall.

When I was about 12, my 5-year-old brother made a private remark to me after we had just survived some extended polite conversation with my mother’s important out-of-town visitors. He said: “They don’t talk to us like we’re real people.” I answered that I would never forget that. That promise has stayed by me all my life.

I will talk to anyone with respect, and I will listen: a child, a nonogenerian, a panhandler, a store clerk, a lawyer, a teacher, an inmate, an adolescent, a drunk. (Well, the drunk is a little hard.) I don’t dismiss anyone unless they are arrogant, rude and snarky, as some folks are around here, or display a lack of mental capacity for a civil exchange between equals. Wrinkles are irrelevant.

Every single person I meet knows something I don’t know, and I listen, hoping to glimpse what it is. Often I learn something new, even in a two-minute exchange with a drugstore cashier.

I was way ahead of the maturity curve when I was young so no…I tend to give young folks an ear when they speak. I love to challenge their thoughts or help them think further down a thread. Not to mention I, every so often, learn something I didn’t know.

I look for burst capillaries in the nose and cheeks. They indicate an interesting life story. My favorite prof had them.

@RedDeerGuy1 Isnt that caused by alcoholism usually? Lol

@KNOWITALL Yes. My prof obviously liked to party , and still got his Ph.d. in philosophy and became a professor. He died this year. I liked his book that he wrote. Philosophy and religion by Philip Merklinger.

I tend to listen to people less if they have wrinkles. Older people labor under the delusion that their age makes them smarter, wiser and more authoritative.

@KNOWITALL I found a copy for $35 on Amazon. I ordered it.

It is getting tougher for me. My family doctor for over 35 years, recently retired and has been replaced by a child! I’m sure she’s no older than 12! :-)
Also I’ve noticed police officers are children now.!

@KNOWITALL not always, it just means that you have capillaries close to the skin surface, an adaptation to colder climate. Not uncommon in European heritage.

Recently I saw a photo of me from when I was 22 (five years ago) and that slight wrinkle that’s now by the side of my mouth wasn’t there then. :( I’m getting ancient. But I guess I also have some outward signs of wisdom now.

I’ve been posting on internet forums since I was 14. In that time I’ve learned that age does not necessarily bring maturity or wisdom. As Darth_Algar points out, people often use their age to give themselves a false sense of authority or validity to their opinions, which may be no more valid than a young person’s, given the context.

I’ve seen middle-aged men bicker and feud like children and wise-for-their-years teenagers present more cogent and measured opinions than people twice their age. I remember how frustrating it was to not be taken seriously when I was younger (to actually have people retract their agreement with me once they discovered I was young!), and I will never refuse to listen to someone just because of their age.

I don’t judge book by its cover. Well, most of the time.

No. I know a lot of seniors who lie through their dentures.
Age does not mean wise, but you would think that by the time they are seniors that they had learned from mistakes and life..I tell you, NO some don’t!
Here in a seniors apartment block several are mentally stuck in their adolescent stage!
Hissy fits over nothing of importance occur daily…some are really immature!
I stay away from those ones and concentrate on completing my goals.

No, but I may infer and judge them and their answers a bit based on a combination of that and (mostly) other clues.

I would think it depends on the subject matter. For computer or smartphone tips and tricks, I would listen to my 9 year old granddaughter before someone my age. Business advice, I would lean towards someone with a little grey in their hair. Financial advice I would look to see what kind of car they’re driving.

I can take anyone seriously who tells me something serious. However, those of us with wrinkles who have lived through a lot usually have more wisdom than the young, though of course there are exceptions.

No. Some kids are pretty damn sharp. Others, though, think they know it all. Those are the ones I dismiss.

@Jeruba That’s pretty uncanny.

When I was in sixth grade, I made a promise with my future self to listen and acknowledge what children had to say. I’d like to think I kept my promise.

Sixth grade would also have put me at age twelve (or eleven).

I have noticed people treat me differently because I look young.

My husband is my age too and people make comments about how he’s ‘robbing the cradle.’ We just let it go most of the time. His friends and coworkers always assume I am clueless about just about everything and I have to remind them – yes I know that band I was a teenager when they were popular, yes I have seen that movie I was 12 when it came out…. etc.

People don’t ask me about my profession or ask my advice on anything ever. I’m in real estate and when I got our new place people were asking him about the process and he would have to tell them he didn’t do anything because he doesn’t know how – I did everything because it’s my profession. They still talk directly to him about it.

I am very intelligent and socially apt so people have no reason to think I’m dumb or just not compatible because I may be younger.

My suggestion is to at least give people a chance before judging! But it is human nature to judge based on looks. :)

I take people seriously until they give me a reason not to, regardless of their wrinkles or lack of wrinkles. I’d be mad if I found out someone wasn’t taking me seriously because I didn’t have wrinkles and therefore looked like I lacked the wisdom necessary to be taken seriously. I’m sorry my genetics have blessed me with greasy skin and it’s going to keep me looking youthful. The skin I got frustrated with as a teenager is the same I’m thankful for now when I see deep lines across my friend’s foreheads. People think my mom is my sister because I got it from her. Hmph. Such a silly reason to not take someone seriously.

Obama didn’t have NEAR enough wrinkles to be president the first time around.