I ordered a Caesar salad and a Diet Coke and the waitress nodded gravely, never taking her eyes off my coworker, Mark. When I was done she took Mark’s order and then briefly turned back to me. “Would you like to order?” she said.
I sighed; this happens frequently when I have lunch with Mark. He is so staggeringly good looking that most waitresses, and a fair number of waiters, can’t take their eyes off him. Feeling invisible, I reordered my salad and my Diet Coke. The waitress glanced at me briefly, as though she had discovered gum on the bottom of her shoe. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. Ten minutes later she brought Mark his burger but nothing for me. “What did you have?” she asked.
Later that afternoon my good friend Liz called. Liz and I have been friends forever and I can tell her anything “Sometimes I feel invisible,” I said. She snorted. “You’re invisible?” she said. “Try being a short, menopausal woman. People look at me like they don’t see me.”
I thought for a moment. “Yeagh, but you’re not even five feet tall,” I reminded her, “Sometimes I don’t see you.” I frequently lose Liz in crowds.
“Well,” said Liz, “that’s why I’m a total bitch. It’s the only way to get any attention.”
Right after Liz, my buddy Rob called. “Sometimes I feel like I’m invisible,” I told him. Rob is the general manager for a glitzy boutique on South Beach. “You’re invisible?” He said. “Try being bald, paunchy and over 50 on South Beach. Even in my own store I feel like I’m wearing Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. ” He paused. “I walked into the store last week and a new Associate thought I was there to fix the copier. ” He paused again and I visualized him shaking his head. “The worse part is, I’m the one who interviewed this fool, and then a week later he doesn’t remember we met? That’s why I’m a total bastard at work. It’s the only way people take me seriously.”
I was seeing a trend here, and I realized that if I was looking for sympathy for being invisible I was not about to get any because I was not unique. As I reflected on this my older sister called. She had just taken our mom to a doctor’s appointment and was in a fury. This was not an isolated event; dealing with health care providers in itself is infuriating, but the doctor she saw that morning is, quite simply, an idiot.
“Ma and I waited for over 40 minutes in the examining room,” she said, “and when he finally came in he turned his back to Mom and asked me how she was feeling, as though she were invisible.”
Unfortunately, this is not a uncommon. Doctors look at a frail old woman and tend to assume her mind is shot, which in my mother’s case is certainly not true. “What did you say?” I asked my sister.
She giggled. “I didn’t get the chance,” she said. “Mom poked him in the butt with her cane and said ‘Why don’t you ask me yourself? I’m right here.’” She giggled again. “She poked him hard,” she said. He jumped like he had been goosed.”
I pondered this; I admired Mom’s direct approach, but I’d probably be jailed for assault if I tried it, so I chalked up “invisibility” as another unexpected consequence of middle age.
The next week I had lunch with my coworker Mark again, and he was clearly annoyed. “Let me guess,” I said. “Nancy?”
He nodded grimly. Nancy is one of those women who completely forgot she had a husband as soon as their first child was born earlier this year. “The baby is six months old,” he said, “so I made plans to leave the baby with Nancy’s mom and booked us on a weekend trip to Key West. When I told her she gave me this blank look,” here he made a face, “and she completely ignored me….. just walked away. She never even responded.”
He sighed. “Sometimes I swear I’m invisible,” he said.