Here’s why I lie about my age to college guys

As a freshman, I've learned a few important things. Most of which being centered around the fact that I’m eighteen years old and now able to do stuff that I wasn’t able to when I was younger.

To further prove my case, I’ve conducted a list.

Here’s some things I can do now that I’m eighteen: I can participate in the democratic process by casting a vote in an election, legally drink a margarita on the beaches of Cancún, or get a tattoo somewhere on my body without my parents finding out. However, with all those new privileges there always comes a downside.

Here’s what I can’t do: be taken seriously by a sophomore, junior or senior guy in college without him picturing me in a prom dress or carrying books up a high school stairwell.

The idea of lying about age is nothing new

Without it, women wouldn’t be celebrating their "29th" birthday for the third year in a row or have their fake IDs snatched by bartenders and bouncers.

I didn’t have the intention to trick them into thinking that I’m somehow smarter or more interesting because I was a couple semesters ahead. Any guy who thinks that because I was born in '99, I must be too immature for him is probably not worth my time – or yours – anyway.

Usually a guy starts chatting me up for a good fifteen minutes until they finally ask what year I am.

“A freshman,” I would tell them as their awkward routine dance-away-from-me-with-the-beat-of-the-music ensured. When I did tell the truth about my age, the jokes about being a freshman most likely begin.

Watch out we're freshmen or not!

I wasn’t changing who I was to impress anyone. I’ve always been mature for my age. I always related to girls that were twice as older than me and some of my closest friends are sophomores and juniors in college. I simply just wanted an equal chance to be taken seriously like they are, so why not tell a little white lie?

But it wasn’t just those guys who showed distaste towards freshmen girls.

It was everyone. I caught on quick – the stigma of freshmen is embedded deeply into the minds of almost everyone at college. Including my roommate, Katie.

“I hate freshmen girls at parties,” my roommate Katie said to me one night after going out. The irony is that she declared that statement in a freshman residence hall, being a freshman herself.

“Katie, we’re freshman girls at parties,” I say. “You know what I mean,” she laughed. Freshman girls were seen as loud, annoying packs of drunk girls that Snapchat just about anything at parties. Me and Katie? That was certainly not us.

Behold―my roommate, Katie

And so as the semester went on, my freshman year came with two advantages: Katie’s senior brother and a shared pack of fake eyelashes that we bought from the Rite Aid across the street from our hall. Because of Katie’s brother, we found ourselves on rooftops of apartments that the typical freshman wouldn’t be invited into. Since we dressed differently than typical freshmen and the way we blended our foundation―we found ourselves blending into the upperclassman crowd.

We didn’t really lie about our age as much as we dodged questions that would revealed the truth. When the question about where we lived came about our answers were vague. “An apartment,” Katie would say and we’d laugh about it later when we’d fall into our twin XL’s after a night out.

Our results showed that either we were extremely believable or every drunk guy believes anything – both as equally as probable as the other – but whatever the case we had finally we’d found out how to be taken seriously:

Just. Don’t. Let. Them. Know.