It started as a playful experiment. I had always been told I looked younger than my age, but I’d never really put it to the test. One afternoon, while scrolling through social media, I stumbled upon a trend where women asked strangers online to guess their age. Curious and feeling a little bold, I decided to join in. I snapped a selfie—natural light, minimal makeup, and a casual smile—and posted it with the question: “Guess my age!”

I expected a few flattering comments and maybe a couple of off-the-mark guesses. But I was completely unprepared for what happened next. The comments started pouring in, one after another, and I watched them with a mixture of amusement and anticipation.

“25?” one person guessed.
“No way you’re older than 28,” said another.
“You look like you’re in your late 20s, maybe 30,” someone chimed in.

As I read each comment, my heart raced. I had turned 42 last month, and the fact that so many people thought I was a decade—sometimes nearly two decades—younger was both thrilling and bewildering. A part of me felt like I’d won some kind of unspoken game, but another part of me wondered if they were just being nice or if the lighting had hidden more than I thought.

Then came the shocking part. Among the flood of compliments, there were a few that stopped me in my tracks.
“35, but trying too hard to look younger.”
“Honestly, you look mid-40s to me.”
“You’re probably 40, but it’s hard to tell with all the filters.”

I didn’t use any filters. I stared at the comments, feeling a strange mix of defensiveness and insecurity. Had I unknowingly crossed the line between looking youthful and trying too hard to look younger? Did people really think I was hiding behind filters or makeup? My playful experiment had become a reflection of the complexities women face around aging.

It was a wake-up call. I had always prided myself on not caring about my age, but now I realized just how much the opinions of strangers could affect me. In the days that followed, I went through the comments again, paying closer attention to the positive ones. The truth was, I still felt young, and that’s what mattered. The responses, both flattering and blunt, made me realize that age is just a number, and I had to be comfortable in my own skin regardless of what others thought.

In the end, I left the post up—comments and all—as a reminder to embrace myself, flaws and all. It wasn’t about looking a certain age; it was about feeling confident, no matter what anyone else said. And that’s a lesson I wasn’t expecting to learn from a simple selfie.