Quoteanyone relate to this
Oooooooo, yes. The mid-twenties tend to separate those who are lucky with genetics and those who aren't, or so it seems... All the people I know who looked great at 25 still look great, and those that suddenly aged around 25 now look much older. From what I can gather from medical science, its due to the beginning of the somatopause, which is when the body stops producing shed-loads of Human Growth Hormone to effectively fund puberty. With puberty finished, mother nature starts the long process of dismantling the human body (otherwise if we continued having high HGH levels through adulthood, then I guess we'd live for centuries perhaps). Anywho, its easier for the body to look and feel young when there's plenty of HGH to replace every faulty or brocken cell quickly. When the HGH levels drop, you become more at the mercy of how efficient your body is based on your genetics, rather than the "cheat" of having the youth boost. Of course, this is why there's this issue that its important to start HRT prior to 25, and that's because of the HGH (as well as things like bones hardening into their relative final shapes and sized). Its a fascinating topic, I know bugger all about it :p But I do remember the general gist from my research.
Anywho, my body caught up after having stunted growth, and I developed those typical male pattern facial lines beside the cheeks, very suddenly. I'm not sure that men actually age faster, I think its more that mother nature thinks its beneficial for men to look rugged, rough and older than their years. So mother nature likes to ensure stuff like MPB and lines and wrinkles and grey beard shadow do happen, so when you need to fight that chimp in the jungle to defend your mate and offspring you can look as menacing as is possible. Women follow a more neotenous model of development through adulthood, with nature more focused on ensuring women look as youthful as possible in order to denote lush fertility and child-bearing energy. So its in mankind's interest that men look haggard & lumbering and women look soft & lithe, really. There's pros and cons to being both sexes biologically, but as we increasingly live in a sophisticated world of technology and imagery - a haggard-looking lumbering male is increasingly getting the raw end of the deal, I reckon. Though billions of men would definitely disagree with me.
But hey! Unfortunately mankind is sentient. And many biological males like myself can't help but think "hey! we got a ->-bleeped-<- deal out of being this sex"
And of course for those of us who also don not feel like male in the first place, we thus find ourselves on this site.
Anywho, faces are mess of features some of which look old, some of which look younger. I have the body of a late teenager and the hairline, hair and face of a 40-year old.
So, I guess, you gotta count your blessings right? I'm sure you don't look as old as you think!
