So, how old DO I look?

Am confused. Practically for ever I've been aware that I look younger than my years, it's something that I've got used to and I'm sure I'll be glad of it when I'm older. Has been a problem for me at work though, in hospital when I was the SHO on nights, patients used to look in horror when I turned up to sort them out as they assumed I was the work-experience student rather than the well-trained, knowledgeable person in charge of the admissions. It's been the same since I started being a GP, I often get told I look too young to be in the job so I have a kind of sweepstake going and whenever anyone comments on it, I ask them to guess the age. To give you a rough idea, the average answer is around 23 with range 19-27 (I'm 30). Is also good as I see a lot of the teenage and student patients who feel they can relate to me more than they can to someone who reminds them of their dad.

But in town today I was approached by some ladies wielding clipboards, trying to find people to give them a couple of minutes to answer a survey. As I was in no hurry, I thought I'd be nice and help out, so I stopped to answer their questions. First one was "did I ever buy yoghurt?", which I do, so far so good as that had qualified me to continue. But then they asked my age, and when I told them I was thirty, their faces fell as apparently you have to be 35 to take part. So now I'm confused. They must have either have thought I was 35 in order to bother asking me in the first place, or they were just so desperate to get people to take part that they were asking anyone who appeared approachable. I wish I'd asked which of the two applied, as I'm worried in case the late nights have taken their toll and I've suddenly started to look haggard.

This week I have been mostly wasting time in two ways - having video chats with distant friends on Skype seeing as it's free, and you can play poker and stuff against each other, and also been doing the jigsaw of the day online which is great as you don't lose any pieces or have to clear up afterwards.