I take lectures in a room full of 24-year-olds: poets, novelists and essayists, all of us flung together by a contract or more appropriately, an offer to research and teach in exchange for an education. The first time I meet the other black ‘guy’ in my class, he calls me honey but without the usual glint in his eyes that one would get from some men back home. Still, more than anything, this casual American greeting makes me want to hold a placard over my head that reads: Dude, I am not your mate!

The thing is, nothing spells 32 better than being in a room full of 24 years olds, all of us scrambling for the centre of the conversation. My approach to this issue, this feeling of displacement, is silence. When my classmates ask how old I am, I smile and say, ‘older.’ https://theladysroom.ng/why-i-dont-like-to-tell-people-my-age-a-coming-out-story/