It’s startling how, in the course of a week, I can see such a vast range of advice for how teenagers online should deal with their ages– all of them with reasoning that makes plenty of sense to me, and yet all so contradictory.

“Always lie about your age! Say you’re 20 or 30! Don’t give child predators a reason to seek you out!”

“Are you kidding? Tell what your real age is, so that decent people know what’s the right way to treat you! Lying just gives predators an excuse to claim they didn’t know you were a kid!”

“Don’t put an age in your bio at all– why the hell would you think people are entitled to that info about you?”

“If you don’t have an age in your bio I’m gonna assume you’re too young to see my blog and I’m blocking you, tough luck, your fault, you should have put an age!”

And the wildest part? …putting an age in your bio communicates absolutely nothing, except “I am willing to claim this is my age.” If you were to put an identification document there that actually proved your age, you’d also be proving a level of maturity in the single digits, regardless what that age was. And I’ve never seen someone make that mistake.

Anytime I see an age in bio, I consider that it might not be real… though I don’t know what age ranges are most commonly claimed by liars, here on this corner of the Internet. I would guess probably the 20s. That’s old enough not to get called a child, and young enough not to get called a predator.

Most of the time.

But even if you’re openly 24, you’re gonna get cast as the helpless victim in any argument you have with a 40-something, and you’re the creepy harasser in any argument you have with a 19-year-old. I’d guess there are probably some unscrupulous adults misrepresenting their ages toward the teenage end of the spectrum just to avoid being blamed for anything (…or even to facilitate their own predatory behavior by looking harmless to kids).

Personally, I make no secret of the fact that I’m in my 40s. It’s easily found via my pinned post with just one click. And I’m generally not afraid I’ll be disbelieved on that. It’s an unglamorous age, and also one that means I have to be very careful how I act around those claiming to be younger. Probably not a popular age to claim falsely.

But still, I can imagine there are a few young people, looking to be seen as mature, who have the same thought process, and decide to inflate their age to forty-something just because it’s so unlikely to be questioned. It’s not outside the realm of possibility. So I still never assume 100% that people will accept my word for my own age either.

I dunno. It just seems deeply messed-up that some people on this website will get so intensely up in arms about the in-bio ages of the people in any interaction – when in many cases there’s almost no reason at all to think those even ARE their real ages.