“When you're invisible, the only one really watching you is you.” – The Invisible Man I thought that if one more person said to me – “I didn’t see you there”, I would scream at them “I’m not invisible you know.” This was turning into something I had had enough of hearing. It was a phrase that regularly turned up at the beginning of conversations. People shouldn’t start all their conversations – “I didn’t see you there,” should they? Sometimes they apologised for this, with a look of how on earth did I not see her there? Other times they just blurt out the “I didn’t see you there” which is probably worse, because you’re left thinking, am I really so invisible that they didn’t notice me until they said that? I’m not invisible you know. I know I’m only five foot tall, but it’s not so small that I’m invisible. I mean, five foot of person must be more visible than say an ant or a little spider surely. I’m more visible than one of those miniscule bed mites. Just because I’m small, it doesn’t mean that you can’t see me. I mean, I’m quite obvious sometimes. Sometimes, I can even be blatantly there! I sometimes feel like hiding from the world, but I don’t have to, because apparently I’m invisible. It would be a useful skill if I were hiding from the police, or a drug dealer I had ripped off, but unfortunately, my life isn’t that interesting, scary or risky. I am the invisible woman – surely someone should be working on a film about my life, and trying to pair me up with the invisible man. I wanted to spray paint myself fluorescent pink, so that people would not walk past me without looking twice. I wanted to be one of those women who could walk into a room and radiate, or make a statement without actually saying anything – not a weird statement you know, but something really profound. Magazines like Cosmopolitan tell you that if you stand up tall, in the latest strappy sandals, wear a really expensive dress and plaster your face with designer makeup, you can walk into a room and everyone will stare. People would probably stare at me because they’re waiting for me to be tonight’s entertainment – the clown, as I stumble down the stairs, and smudge my lipstick on some attractive man’s shirt, and nervously giggle while my hand-eye co-ordination goes completely and I spill a glass of red wine over my new, very expensive dress. It wasn’t as if I was so thin that I disappeared when I turned sideways – girls who did that generally were the most visible women alive, and men could not take their eyes off them. There’s a girl at work who disappears when she turns on her side, she’s so skinny, but people can still see her cleavage, and her face. Me, I’m completely invisible. There I was in Boots, buying my lunch – my 96 calorie packet of crisps and a 99 calorie chocolate bar which was supposed to help me in my weight loss – allegedly. My boss was behind me in the queue – I’d seen him earlier in the shop when I was picking out my crisps, but he seemed so engrossed in selecting a sandwich that I didn’t think I should disturb him. Finally I got to the front of the queue, and while the girl behind the counter was scanning the items, I turned around and said “Hi Mike”. He looked up from his cheese and ham bagel and he replied…”Sorry, I didn’t see you there” – Ahhhhhhhh! “Do you want a plastic bag for those?” The checkout woman asked. I couldn’t decide on my answer, was it to be “Yes, because I’m trying to single handed-ly destroy the universe.” Or “Yes, cos I’m going to use it to throw up in it after scoffing all this food” or should I go for the “Yes, I may need it to put over the head of a small child, or myself at a later stage.” I politely replied, “Yes please” and left the shop, without talking any further to the man who thought I was invisible. He just did it again – my boss, he looked straight through me while I stupidly smiled back at him, in the hope he’d catch my eye and start up a long conversation on the benefits of taking Strepsils for my cough. Maybe I just want to be noticed once in a while, the occasional “Hi there, how are you doing?” that would be nice, but after that, what? I wouldn’t know what to say next. I don’t converse well with bosses – I don’t have much in common with them – they’re running the business, and I’m the one who’s keeping the business going, but apart from that, what else could I say? “How are you?” is one of those things that people have stopped answering nowadays. It’s like “Alright?” or “How’s things?” You know people are either going to say fine, or they’ll give you some long spiel on how ill they are, or some problem they’re having, when you were just being polite, and didn’t really want to know how they were. I’ve turned invisible several times before. My most memorable disappearing act was at University. I was supposed to meet this guy that I wasn’t really supposed to meet, as I had a boyfriend at the time, but at the time, this was irrelevant, so there I am in the University café, waiting for him to turn up, and the smile on my face broadened as he appeared in the doorway, and looked around, I thought he’d noticed me, as my smile usually catches peoples attention, then he walked straight towards the cafeteria. Got himself his staple breakfast of black coffee with no sugar and paid for it. Had another look around the room, holding his polystyrene cup and didn’t see me waving at him in what felt at the time as a manic wave, but was probably just a menial hand gesture. But he didn’t see me and went to sit with someone else, who turned out to be a lecturer, so I decided against bothering them, as the guy was supposed to be doing a PhD. I sat there with my cup of tea and jam doughnut and thought, “I’m invisible aren’t I?” The other day, I was following one of my colleagues out of the lift, examining his brightly coloured trousers, as I followed in his footsteps towards the door. I’d just spent at least a minute in the lift with him on the way up to the 5th floor, and figured he knew I was going to the same place as him, but he nearly slammed the door in my face, and guess what he said…“I didn’t see you there.” It happened again in the tearoom, and someone looked up from their tea stirring with a jump. People can just walk past me, and ask someone else behind me where I’m sitting now. Maybe they just have tunnel vision, or maybe I really am invisible. Occasionally I’d smile at people, or say Hi, and they’ll just completely ignore me. Maybe no one likes me – now I’m getting paranoid, as if being paranoid about being invisible wasn’t enough. Am I stealth girl? Can I be used as some military bomb placer? Get sent to war torn countries to put bombs amongst the enemy armies. Undetectable by radar, the enemy will never see or hear me coming, and I could walk amongst them, pull silly faces and stand back while they all get blow to smithereens. The human submarine, except I can’t breath under water for that long. I can see the advantages of being invisible in changing rooms though. I am sometimes visible – mainly when people want things from me. Then, then I can’t escape. People can hound me forever once they’ve discovered where I am and have tracked me down. I feel like a fox in the woods which nobody takes any notice of unless they’re sitting on horses, surrounded by hounds. My invisibility disappears on a temporary basis. It’s like a camouflage that washes off in the rain. But this only lasts until the person chasing me has received what it was they wanted from me. So, how do you survive while you’re invisible? Survival rules for the invisible - I guess the first thing is to make sure no one stands on you, because getting trodden on can really hurt. Remember not to eat too much visible food in case it starts to make you visible. And finally remember just because you’re invisible, you’re not invincible, even if they do sound like similar words. I should have “I didn’t see you there” engraved on my gravestone, but then people will just trip over it and say “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Then I’d jump out of the ground and drag them into the soil with me – kind of Carrie style. But by then, I probably will be invisible after being eaten by all those tiny bugs and worms and gnarly things that in the mud. Today was a miracle. I wasn’t invisible today. No one walked past me without noticing me, or paying attention to me, or just stopping to talk to me. Today I was so un-invisible it was amazing. So how did I do it? How did I recover so quickly? What was my secret to staying visible for an entire day? I managed it by not leaving the house, so I didn’t actually see anyone, and no one saw me, so they couldn’t see if I was invisible or not. Do you think invisibleness is hereditary? Can you imagine having loads of invisible kids? Cool. “Being invisible is the best” – Amazon Women on the Moon
I Wasn’t Invisible Today
