The idea of asking a lady for her age has been a subject of debate for the longest time now. In fact, to date, some people believe that you can’t ask a lady for her age. Others believe that there is nothing wrong with asking a girl for her age as long as it’s not for malicious reasons. There is still another category of people who believe that it’s okay to ask a girl for her age, but it’s dependent on several factors.
What is your age? How old are you? Though they might seem like simple and straight questions, different people interpret them differently.
So, the big question is: How do you politely ask a girl for her age?
There are three different ways to ask a girl for her age: A direct, a humorous, or an indirect question. While politeness is key in every way you choose, the indirect question proves to be the least offensive method with the drawback of giving you just a rough estimation.
How you ask matters a lot
Communication is a very integral part of relationships. In fact, relationships can either break or grow depending on how people communicate with one another. Have you ever asked someone a question and they felt offended? If yes, this is to show that the way you communicate with others matters a great deal. A good example of questions that people like asking a lot is about age.
This is an issue that attracts divergent views but it’s something that society faces daily. From the onset, it’s important to acknowledge that this is a highly sensitive issue for a majority of ladies. They interpret asking for their age as rudeness and, as a result, they don’t take it kindly.
So, does it mean that asking a girl for her age can’t happen at all? Absolutely not! If one can ask for the age of a girl, then how is it supposed to happen? Do you have a good and a bad way of doing it?
Undoubtedly, politeness is the key thing here.
Have you ever noted that if you ask for something politely you will almost get it all the time? It’s the same case when you’re asking a girl for her age. You’ll find yourself in different situations, and it’s these scenarios that will guide you on how to ask for the age of a girl. Here are some situations that you can use to ask a lady for her age politely.
Ask directly
You can go ahead and be direct with your question. Don’t be worried about being direct. Some people think that asking for someone’s age directly is rude. But, the truth of the matter is that it largely depends on how you ask the question.
You can be direct and still be polite enough to ask important questions. Just an important piece of advice here is that you should wait for the right moment for you to ask the question. Remember, women are more emotional than men. So, you have to be aware of the right moment for you to throw in the question.
You may ask the question in a very polite way, but you will spoil everything if you ask it at the wrong moment.
You can try something like this:
“I hope it’s not too much for me to ask, but I sincerely thought of asking. I know you to be a very mature lady with great ideas but when I look at you don’t look as though you’re old enough to possess such wisdom. Am sorry for being so curious, but how old are you?”
In such a scenario, you have gone ahead to ask the question directly. The question is polite and any respectful lady would respond kindly to it. The trick here is to begin the conversation in a way that the lady would appreciate and then go ahead and ask for her age.
There is a justification for your question. If you start by praising or complimenting her, she was interpreting that as respect and politeness and she will respond.
It’s prudent to understand here that the important thing is to ask a lady for her age politely. It has nothing to do with the response she gives after the question. She may choose to tell you her age or decline to do so. She has the liberty of answering you as she desires. After all, it was a question and she has the freedom of answering it or not, right? The bottom line here is that she won’t take it as rudeness if you ask her in a good, cultured, and polite way.
Ask the humorous way
This is another situation you can make use of to ask a lady for her age. An important tip is that things can go wrong here, so you have to be very careful as you engage the lady.
To begin with, are you humorous? If you try to be humorous and you’re not, it might come out awkwardly and you might land yourself in trouble.
Imagine pulling a joke on a lady who doesn’t entertain such? You will end up surprising yourself instead. Anyway, just like it is for the direct approach, you have to be as polite as possible.
Any feeling of rudeness from your question will have a negative interpretation and you won’t get what you’re looking for. Again, make sure that the environment is good for the question.
You can try something like this:
“A buddy of mine saw you yesterday and thought you must be around 23 years old. I don’t think you’re anywhere near 20 years old. Am I wrong really?”
Another example is:
“Hey, how are you? The last time I checked the management never allowed high school students to enter here.”
These are humorous approaches to trying to ask a girl her age. Probably, if you cracked the joke well enough, the next thing that will follow is laughter or a big smile. If the humor didn’t come out well, you will probably get a rude answer, or the girl will just remain silent.
In a situation where you use humor to try and know the age of a girl, chances are high that she won’t tell you her age immediately.
This may spark an informal conversation about the joke. In the first example, she may want to know where your friend saw her and stuff like that. Don’t hesitate to continue with the conversation because you have caught her attention. If you engage her well, you may end up having a good conversation.
Just be well-mannered during the conversation and you’ll be successful in your request.
Indirect questions
Indirect questions are an effective way of politely asking for a girl’s age. Actually, this approach comes out as an effective one because the lady might not realize that you want to know her age.
She can’t interpret the question as a rude one because it doesn’t come out as a direct one.
Since it is an indirect question, she will concentrate more on the conversation and less on whether she is revealing her age or not. Take note that to succeed in this approach you must build a good conversation first. A good conversation will pave the way for the question.
Good conversations will always create open communication where the involved parties are not afraid of expressing themselves. In such a situation, you can make use of particular topics that can help in asking for a lady’s age.
Education
The first topic that you can use is education. In regard to education, you can ask her something like this:
“What are some of the highlights or memorable events that happened when you were in high school?”
This is an indirect question that will give you a clue about her age. As she tells of the memorable events that happened when she was in high school, you will be able to know the year when they happened and figure out her age.
You may not know her exact age, but you’ll be within the right range.
History
You can also choose to focus on history. Something along the line of:
“What’s the one thing that you remember the most in your childhood?”
“So, how has your birthday been this year? Do you have a milestone birthday coming up soon?”
When she answers, you can exclaim that’s so amazing! What year was it?
Just like it is for the education question, she will not know that you’re asking for her age directly. She will go ahead and share her childhood memory and go on to tell you when it happened.
Ladies appreciate conversations where you allow them to tell stories about them. You can take advantage of that and get all the information you need to guess their age. You’ll end up knowing their age without having to ask them for it.
Undeniably, politeness is the key thing here. If you ask a girl for her age in a polite way, she will respond positively. However, if you sound rude, you won’t get the response you’re looking for.
The situations mentioned above are worthy of a try if you want to ask for the age of a girl. The next time you want to engage in such a conversation, try out and see how it goes. Good luck!
Sophie Hammond is a journalist, psychologist, and freelance speechwriter for people in politics and business. She lives on the edge of the Rocky Mountains with her dog and a lifetime supply of books. When she’s not writing, she can be found wandering through nature or journaling at a coffee shop.