Wondering how old someone is but feeling embarrassed or awkward to ask them? We have all been in that situation. Curiosity can nag at you until you find the answer. But asking a person’s age could be impolite and may even seem intrusive, especially when you have just met them. To avoid coming across as being nosey, use our tips and tricks to find their age discreetly.
Ask Indirectly
You can determine an individual’s age in a number of indirect ways. For example, ask them about high school or college and when they attended it. Or, you can inquire about their career—what was their first job, and how long ago was it? How about their parents or siblings? What do they do, and how old are they?
You can also check what type of music they listen to or movies they watch. What was their favorite song, movie, or TV show growing up? And what was their experience with technology? For instance, which phone did they use first? What was the first browser they searched the internet with?
All these will give you enough clues to guess which era they grew up in and determine their age. And if you can identify a mutual friend or colleague during conversations, you can even find out the relevant person’s age from them.
Browse a Search Engine
You may not be able to ask for a person’s age, but chances are you would have uncovered other personal details while conversing. These can include their first and last names, high school, city of residence, profession, and workplace.
If so, you can use different combinations of this information to look for them on a search engine. For instance, try their name and city or name and high school within open and closed quotation marks. This could retrieve various online sources relevant to your search query, which might hint at how old they are.
If they played basketball, searching their name and high school, for example, might uncover an old news article about a game they won. By checking the publication date, you can get a pretty good idea about their age.
Don’t forget to widen the search by setting the search timeline to go as far back as possible. Alternatively, you can search by 10-year blocks to find relevant online results for each decade.
Check Social Media
With 246 million Americans using networking sites, platforms such as Facebook, X, and LinkedIn can be excellent resources for discovering someone’s age.
You can ask them which social media platforms they use or just search for their name on popular networking sites. Some people display their age and birthday on their profiles. If that is the case, your detective work can stop there. But if not, you might need to do some more sleuthing.
Browse their profile for more clues. For example, look for posts shared on their birthday. Check who has wished them or is tagged on their birthday celebration photos. If you find anyone around the same age, review their profiles to see whether they have posted their age or high school graduation details.
Sometimes, the person you are interested in might have made their profile private, giving you limited access to their information. When this happens, send them a request to connect. They will likely accept it since you have already met. Once they do, you can browse their profile to find more details.
While you are there, don’t forget to go through their connections. If you can find mutual friends, you might discover useful information that could hint at the relevant individual’s age.
Use an Online Search Tool
Specialized online platforms provide people search services to make it easier to find information about various individuals. These are data aggregators that collect information from publicly available sources.
Some of them will allow you to search for information by name. Others could let you use email addresses or phone numbers to uncover data when you don’t have an accurate or complete name.
Depending on the search platform you choose, you can find a range of details about an individual, from their age, marital status, and personal address to financial information and even criminal records.
Here are five popular platforms to discover someone’s age with an anonymous search.
- PeopleFinders
This platform uses 120 billion public records to create comprehensive individual profiles for you to search. A free search will get you a person’s age, location, and names of possible relatives and associates. If you want to know more, you must purchase a detailed report with a monthly subscription plan starting at $24.95.
- TruthFinder
With over 60,000 5-star reviews, TruthFinder is another popular site for learning how old someone is. The platform will require the first and last name of the individual and several other information to help refine the results. Its monthly subscription will cost you $28.05, which includes an unlimited number of detailed reports.
- Intelius
Founded in 2003, this platform allows you to discover an individual’s age and more with a discreet search. It uses federal, state, and county records and other public resources to find data and prepare individual reports. You can download a report for a one-time fee of $3.99 or sign up for a $24.86 monthly plan for unlimited people searches.
- Spokeo
According to Spokeo’s website, the platform organizes 12 billion records and caters to 500,000 searches a day. Using proprietary deep web technology, the site provides age, alias, location, and relative information for free. You can access the full report at $0.95 with a free membership trial.
- PhoneHistory
If you didn’t catch a name but have a phone number, can use PhoneHistory to conduct a reverse number lookup and find the relevant person’s age. It is a free service with an extensive database of records belonging to more than 500 million US-based phone numbers.
Wrapping Up
If you are curious about someone’s age but reluctant to ask them directly, there are several ways you can determine how old they are. Asking indirect questions could be lots of fun as you put your sleuthing skills to the test. Search engines and social media also serve as valuable information sources for you to search for the information you require. Specialized online search tools can, of course, make your life easier with their convenient reports prepared using data from public records.