Invisibility

It's just the rudeness in society today

I also think I have become invisible - people step front of me in queues, look straight through me when I am trying to get served in shops and the other day I was in a group and was explaining something when someone jumped in and talked over me so I assume my voice has disappeared too.

I think this is also affecting my car. Drivers pull out of side streets in front of me, pedestrians step off of pavements directly into my path and cyclists cross in front of my car causing me to brake sharply.

Oh dear, gracesmum, we don't seem to have quite that level of discourtesy here in the North West. Perhaps it's a southern thing?
Discuss!

I do suspect it is age-related. LOL (little old ladies) are just not noticed half the time - or maybe it is heightist (I am 5'2") And we LOL are naturally polite, so we say "Sorry" when some a****ole barges us or pushes in front in a queue. Either way I feel I need to make myself look more striking or memorable. Like the skirt caught uo in the knickers look or the roller left in the hair look or the lippy a good 4 inches away from the mouth ? Maybe not

I HATE feeling invisible. I've been aware of it at times for quite a while, and went on colouring my hair to prevent some of it. Now I have to stop and am letting the grey out, and I think I will have to be more assertive to make up!

Yes, I think it is an age thing....but I must say when my sister and I visited Dudley last year to see the Red House bottle cone, everyone was noticeably friendly! (That's the furthest north I have been in a while.)

Maybe I will do my hair pink for the 25th. Have been considering it.

Well, that look probably wouldn't get you served any quicker, but as people recoiled in horror you'd be guaranteed a safe passage to the front of the bus queue!

That was to gracesmum, but it might apply to you as well, Alie, if you do dye your hair pink!

gracesmum you do make me laugh

anno I live in East Cheshire (was South) where good manners are thin on the ground. Mind you I have been spoiled as DH is a Wirral man and a perfect gentleman.

I'm not little in any dimension but people still don't see me when I'm on my scooter!

I am assertive and I would tell people pretty sharpish if they pushed in front of me. I don't wear make-up and my hair is snow white and I have shrunk to 5' 5" so I don't think it is anything to do with appearance, but it is a matter of confidence.

And having a voice that can be heard. Like Barrow has found, sometimes people just don't seem to hear me...

I agree with anno it depends where you live. Where we now live everyone is polite including the young drivers and even the bus drivers. We are all nice to each other in the supermarket and when a little old lady needs help at the checkout no one in the queue get huffy. In the bank and Post Office they are helpful and friendly and on the buses they give up their seats to the needy. As my name implies I've lived in several places not all as nice as this.

The only time I feel invisible is when there is football on the TV

Some people just don't appear to recognise faces. There was a local MP and a chief exec of the council locally both of whom I met several times. Neither ever gave any signs of recognising me. I put it down to them lacking in either charm or facial recognition genes. Or both.
Ana for all you know allie would look magnificent with pink hair.

Movedalot sounds lovely - where do you live, Trumpton?

Jess - yes indeed! Then people would make way for her in admiration, and she'd still get to the head of the bus queue!

Oh, thank you, Jess and Ana!

(Regal wave)

Don't let me stop the thread, I seem to be good at that......

Join the club allie it is a tad disconcerting when that happens.
gracesmum you don't look invisible to me. Chic and stylish I would say and you have a 'way' with scarves that I envy.
But maybe we need to make more of a statement. Big jewellery that kind of thing. HATS!
I dug out a fancy Chinese hat and scarf yesterday that i don't wear often. (I thought I would dress up to go to see my cousin.) Then i remembered why, the hat does not stay where put. But it is a fine object bought from Shanghai Tang in HK by DH when he was working there 18 years ago.

sook, surely manners in South East and North East Cheshire can't be that different? Our little town is a friendly place on the whole.

I don't think it's anything to do with how you look. I was always invisible when out with my first idiot husband even though I was attractive and smartly dressed, simply because he made a lot of noise and demanded attention.
Now, my friend and I go out, she is tiny,71 and quite flamboyant and loud, and we are never ignored!
If we go for lunch, we chat to all the staff, ask lots of questions and laugh a lot with people sitting near us!
It's definitely confidence as Greatnan said

I saw this woman give a talk last week. She is tiny, with a soft Glaswegian accent, and was wearing an outfit that looked like she had stepped off the set of a science fiction movie.
Black top, big black baggy pants that are hard to describe, and a kind of long sculpted looking waistcoat thing in stiff fabric that flared out at the bottom about 6 inches off the floor. She was an excellent (really excellent) speaker, which was just as well because she was competing for our attention with how she looked.

No one could ever not notice her coming into a room.

www.id-ology.org/idologists.html

I don't think it's just a matter of confidence or assertiveness - that can be fudged and learned (no bad thing I hasten to add). It's about an intrinsic belief in who you are and your beliefs and place in the world that matters.

Thank you JessM - actually I wonder if the local MP and the man in my anecdote might be one and the same person? No names, no pack drill, but he might have been a member of staff at Downton Abbey?