Invisibility

A classic Baubles - took a while for his brain to join the dots.
And many of us have probably done things like greeting the doctors receptionist as a long lost friend in Sainsbury's.
I met someone the other week whose face was incredibly familiar and she recognised me. Eventually we worked out that we had worked in the same building 10 years ago.

harri I think you are right, we tend to only see people in their usual place or clothing. Many years ago I used to see a woman at the gym and thought I recognised her but couldn't remember where from. When I went to parents afternoon at my son's school there she was, one of his teachers. She had been looking at me in exactly the same way wondering who I was! My son was so embarrassed that his teacher and mum went to the same gym!

Greatnan I agree with you about seeing other more senior (and much better paid) people doing jobs you know you could do better. I think we have all been in that situation.

Bags re supermarket check-out assistants- I think it very much depends what sort of supermarket you go to.
I patronise either the medium sized Co-op within walking distance of our house, where some of the staff have worked for many years and seem to know all the customers and even the young ones are pleasant and friendly, or the nearby small Waitrose where the staff have evidently all done customer service training and on occasion engage their customers perhaps too much - there is one gentleman in particular whose till I avoid if I am in a hurry. The last time he served me I got embroiled in a long conversation about the beautiful works of art he had seen in Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire
I don't like to make generalisations but on the rare occasions I go to the enormous Tesco a few miles away, it is not the same 'shopping experience' at all - which is one reason I don't go there.
I am 5'8'' tall, and was very self-conscious about my height when I was young, and wish I could shrink or become invisible. Now though it is quite useful to tower above people sometimes

I think you're right about that, jane. I'm remembering a friend of mine who used to refer to "the Tesco clones"! Very naughty of her but one knew exactly what she meant!

The not paying till you 'get a contact' is effective even with clones though.

Years ago the Sunday Times did an article on how in time women become invisible. I roughly remember the details: women are visible to all between 18 years to 35, between 35 to 45 they begin to fade [it depends on how well turned out the woman is], 45 to 55 they fade rapidly to men but still visible to women. Over 55 invisible to all men but fading rapidly to women. By 65 women have disappeared entirely.

I played badminton, at a club, in a leisure centre. Most of the male players I only ever saw in shorts and sport tops, I had a big problem if I met these men outside of the leisure centre. Once they had reminded me who they were and where I knew them from my usual answer was " sorry I didn't recognise you with your clothes on "

Well done jodi!! Way to go!! (whatever that phrase means )

Dorsetpennt - my point exactly. An acquaintance once said to me years and years ago, that there is nothing dents your confidence as much as the disappointed look on a man's face when he turns to her at a dinner party and sees a middle-aged woman. [ouch] emoticon

Yes; it's odd how they are quite happy to sit next to a mindless beauty rather than an intelligent, witty lady of a certain age. Last night I went to see a band and, having had a long day at work and sufering with a stinker of a cold I couldn't be bothered with making myself look human. Tried on a t shirt and the girl selling them said 'please don't get any make up on it' to which I repilied that I hadn't bothered with make up that day, as I went to work saying 'if I'm going to feel c**p I might as look c**p as well'. Anyways, I stood behing a young guy with cheekbones to die for; I couldn't take my eyes off his cheekbones. I was so worried that he could sense me gazing at him [as you do]. It was the first time in many years [decades even] that I remembered what it was like to see someone for the first time and fancy them like crazy. I suppose I was reassured by the fact that I looked like a bag lady and was therefore quite invisible . I tell you who he reminded me of; Alex from Franz Ferdinand crossed with Nureyev. [sigh]...

I love that phrase gracesmum though I don't really know what it means either. But say it with enough confidence and it sounds 'cool'.

I'm off now to travel by train to Edinburgh. Am wondering do I want to be invisible or not on the journey. I seem to attract the wrong sort of people to sit next to me eg the perfectly normal looking woman who strikes up a conversation but then after ten minutes confides she's been abducted by aliens or her next door neighbour has bugged her TV set and is watching her every move (both have actually happened).

Or, even worse, the family from hell, Wayne and Waynetta and baby

crimson

With the men who look disappointed to be sitting next to an intelligent middle-aged woman, you play them at their own game, and look disappointed to be sitting next to such an old bore. Works a treat, honest!

Bags it used to be so much worse.....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV8ggl2avcc

Good piss-take.

Now I will have to watch all the clips on Youtube - brilliant!

jodi I struck up an innocent conversation with a female dog walker in the friendly west midlands the other weekend. OMG - in 5 minutes she had "shared" with me a list of family psychiatric problems almost as long as the diagnostic manual devised by the American psychiatric profession. There is such a thing as being too forthcoming. ho hum.

Glad it's not just me that attract these sad people then JessM.

i had a relatively easy train journey north until York, then a strange incident. There were four people sitting at the table on my left across the passage and I was sharing my seat with a young girl student. Suddenly the man directly opposite me started to have some kind of mild fit. He started to shake, went a funny red colour, sweating and was, I thought, trying to talk but couldn't. I thought he was having a heart attack. I looked at the others (three middle aged men) on his table and they were pointedly ignoring him. So I stood up and asked him if he was ok. He couldn't answer. I asked if I could loosen his collar as he seemed to be bulging at the neck too. He just about managed to nod, so I took his tie off and undid his top button. Then he sorted of passed out. All this time no one else was helping or doing anything. So I asked the other men on his table to watch him as I was going for help. I got to the buffet car and they reacted very quickly and sent an attendant back with me. By the time I got back with him the others at the table had opened his brief case and found something to indicate he was diabetic. They were trying to get some glucose tablets into him. It turned out he was hypoglycaemic. It also transpired that the man opposite him was a doctor and the girl sitting next to me was a medical student. Why hadn't they reacted to his obvious distress? The attendant stayed with him until the train made an unscheduled at the next station and he was loaded into a sort of wheelchair thingy and taken away to hospital.

PS meant to add, this poor man was 'invisible' too.

It's that British thing of Not Getting Involved, isn't it? Well done, you.

But gracesmum how can you NOT get involved when someone is in trouble? It goes against everything I've been taught and how I've been brought up (incidentally in an aitheist family) ?

Jodi - Good for you. What a good thing you didn't take the easy option of not getting involved, and I'm sure the man you helped is thinking exactly the same thing right now.

Well done jodi - there is lots of research to say people are more likely to help someone in distress if they are the only person present than in a crowd.
The only hospital consultant I know says his first impulse is to keep his head down if someone says "is there a doctor..."
But on a plane back from the med (with his daughter, also a doctor) they did fess up, diagnosed a probable heart attack and told the captain he had to head for the nearest airport.

I am astounded that a doctor and medical student didn't help. I might have been tempted to ask them what was it that held them back from helping a man in distress. Well done Jodi, he could have died while these useless people looked the other way.

I obviously got talking to the medical student after that and she said she'd been just about to do something before I stepped in. The doctor vanished back behind his newspaper again probably to avoid the black looks I kept sending him

Is it possible that medical professionals are afraid of being sued if they do something and it turns out to be the wrong thing?
Did anybody else see the horrible story of the man who was pushed onto the track of the New York subway and nobody tried to help him out. One man took photos which he sold - he said he had been using his camera to signal to the driver.