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People often comment how youthful I look. I definitely don’t look like a bloke approaching fifty, nor do I feel like it.

They ask me what my secret is. Of course, the fact I don’t drink or smoke keeps me from looking haggard. That’s not really it, though.

If, at this stage, I could pass as thirty-something, it’s not a big deal. That couldn’t be said of my twenties, though, when I still looked like a teenager throughout.

Returning from work to my lodgings, for example, I’d regularly be harrassed by a gang of youths who clearly thought I was in my mid-teens, not several years older than them.

In my wedding photos, I don’t look older than eighteen, though I was twenty-four at the time. Photos of me on hajj several years later are no better.

I guess it explains why I was continually barred entry to pubs and clubs at university. I couldn’t understand it at the time, thinking myself the victim of mean vindictiveness alone. It turns out that was a blessing in disguise.

What, then, is the secret of eternal youth? In my case, an aberration in my chromosomal makeup, which prevents my body from producing all but miniscule quantities of testosterone.

I don’t recommend you try it. Not that I would recommend injecting your face with botox either, or slapping on layers of uglifying foundation.

Just be content with your natural beauty. Some would say the same to me, but that one’s harder to accept. Mine was the face of Michael Jackson in his mid-nineties phase. Unflattering.

For me, the youthful looks were just one of the many humiliating manifestations of this diagnosis. Fortunately, this one is easier to come to terms with than some of the others.

A friend advises me that the “baby face” stands me in good stead at this age. I could be Cliff Richard or Keanu Reeves. Hmm, well, not really. I’m more like Sam Beckett caught in a perpetual Quantum Leap.

Does anyone take seriously a man who looks like he’s just starting out in life? Yep, because that’s honestly how I feel.