‘You seem very mature for you age.’ I chuckle at the words spoken by the man, roughly 15 years older than me, sitting across the table. I raise my eyebrows in both disagreement and disapproval while I shake my head and raise my wine glass to take a sip.

‘No, I am a perfectly normal level of mature for my age.’ Words spoken by me, a 26 year old whose I idea of fun Saturday afternoon might very well be climbing trees, a 26 year old who sleeps with a teddy bear, a 26 year old who is still studying and has no idea what she will be doing in a year. So no, I’m not very mature for my age, although I wouldn’t call myself particularly immature for my age either, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not even rejecting his statement for its falsehood, I’m rejecting it out of principle.

‘Is that something you look for? Maturity?’ I ask him as I put my wineglass down.

‘Yes, I like people that are well travelled, experienced, well read, people that are good conversationalists. I think that is a quality I find most important in people, and you definitely seem to match that.’

I laugh again, an actual, unrestrained laugh this time. ‘You know who I imagine to be much more experienced, to have read and travelled more, and who I expect therefor to be better conversationalists?’ I wait. I give him an opportunity to retort, but he doesn’t so I continue: ‘I’d say women with about ten, twenty, or even thirty years more experience than me, would better tick those boxes.’

He continues on to defend his interest in me. Even went as far as saying that the reason he asked me out, had nothing to do with my looks. We both know that’s a lie. The only reason we are sitting in this restaurant – apart from me being in a why not?-mood – is because this man chased me down the street, a few days prior, to tell me how beautiful I was. I wasn’t walking around with a stuffed backpack, waving my passport around to show off the stamps in it, nor was I carrying six novels and two newspapers under my arm. At the time that he first saw me, there was nothing other to judge me by than my appearance, based on which, he actually expected me to be even younger.

Regardless, in between him denying his true motivations and him showering me in compliments – contrary to those denials – about my beautiful face and amazing body (his words, not mine), we managed to have some enjoyable conversations paired with a delicious dinner. But the longer I sat there, the more I realised that I too search for people that are mature for their age and there was nothing inherently impressive about the things this man had experienced, all the places he had travelled, all the books he had read, given that he, compared to me, had over fifteen years’ worth of more time to do all those things. So, all in all, I had some good food, decent conversation, my ego boosted and at least now I know that, to me, age is definitely not just a number.