Hiding your age?

I always wonder how many issues a woman can hide from her friends? Her savings? Gossip secrets? Or the most common, her age?

Uncountable.

The attempt to conceal their real age is perhaps the most commonly founded habit among women. This impression is so common that even when someone shares her real age with friends, they won’t believe initially.

And if someone reveals the actual age of a particular woman, she would react in a manner as if it was the end of the world.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a girl too. But I also fail to realise why do they tend to hide their age?

Once I met a pair of juvenile siblings. When I asked the boy his age, he replied without any hesitation.

But the girl replied, “Let’s ignore the question. I am a girl after all.”

Though I did not expect this answer, it didn’t surprise me.

To conceal their real age, many women have started using modern techniques. 

With one stroke of makeup, they get rid of the wrinkles. Thanks to various hair dyes, the grey streaks too disappear. On top of that, the modern clothes increase the essence of their looks. No one would be able to realise your actual age these days with all the new methods.

I become even more perplexed when I come across people whose age has remained stagnant for the past few years. Confused? Such people would continue to mention the same age for the next few years.

Once, while talking to my friend, I had pointed out this “mistake,” (I thought it was). But she cut me short by saying that age doesn’t matter.

Are women afraid that people would judge them according to their age? Or they simply want to feel younger?

I think I would never be able to find the reason behind it.

And going by the observation of the famous American poet Robert Frost, one should “always remember a woman’s birthday but never remember her age.”

(Published in The Gulf Today on June 18, 2016)