Does anyone feel invisible at times?

Post Reply New Topic

I never saw the show Lost or Murder in Small Town X, but I used to watch The Mole. I couldn't believe they cancelled it.

If nobody cares that you are there, nobody will notice. If nobody thinks you are there, nobody will notice. If you aren't already invisible, you have to take steps to make sure you become that way. Being invisible already helps. It worked for me in high school. Now for whatever reason (the more "accepting" atmosphere of college? Is the real world like that? That's where I'm headed now that I graduated...) I'm not invisible, so I have to do it less obviously.

I don't know what college is like in the US (I'm from The Netherlands, Europe). What sort of problems do you have?

No "problems," I'm just more accepted, or was, than I'm used to. Not widely accepted, just more than I expected. Just more exposure. And more a**holes, since there's more people, and more fist fights I wish I would have had the nerve to get into, but no, I don't like violence, and I don't want to hurt people. Right now I'm regretting that. Right now I'm drunk, so I'm going to try to tell myself that's the cause. Usually if I'm drunk and violent, I'm also blacked out. Oddly not tonight... I just wish I could pass out. Hopefully this rant doesn't stretch to too many threads. If it does, I apologize.

I'm often "invisible" when I'm in groups of people who know me, or soon after people have met me in a larger social event. If I'm only with one other person it's fine - we can talk. If however there's 2 or more, I just disappear.

It's odd - I don't want to be invisible, but I also don't like being involved in a social group, especially if someone asks you something and suddenly all attention swings onto you.

My sister's mother-in-law has always been the worst. I've known her for over 30 years and yet she still talks to me via my sister when we're in the room together.

You know things like "So what's your brother doing at the moment?"

Bless my sister - she'll reply with something like "Well, sitting next to you actually - I think you'll find he's old enough to answer for himself now".

I feel like I'm invisible, or I want to be invisible.
Sometimes I get surprised when someone moves around me when they are walking and I'm in their way, or wait for me to pass before they turn when driving. I'm surprised that they acknowledged my existence. Like I expected them to not see me.

It's an odd and ridiculous feeling.

Last edited by Jimbogf on 27 May 2007, 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can feel invisible. It's generally being ignored. Of people making a judgment that one is not "important" enough to pay attention to. There are reasons for that. Similar to the reasons why we might watch the news:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A395363

------Excerpt Begin------
Because we are human we share a range of basic animal instincts and drives; hunger, thirst, the need to procreate, and, the most universal impulse of all, the survival instinct.

To survive we need to constantly monitor the world around us for potential threats or changes in our surroundings that may affect us. Once a threat is spotted we need to work out how to deal with it. We must make a decision whether to stand and fight, negotiate, or run away. This is just as true for the executive facing a board room coup as for an ape confronted by a lion.
------Excerpt End------

When we are "invisible" as seen by others, we are not a threat. That's actually okay in some ways. In daily life we don't have store security following us, or a police car watching us closely, or in school the teachers paying too much attention because they think we might cheat.

Invisible on message boards like this can mean again we are not a threat. Or that we aren't well known enough to have been accepted. Or that we may not fit in with a particular group of people. So we are ignored. Sometimes the ignoring is on purpose because people might not like us. Other times it because the other people are much more focused on their current batch of friends, the ones they have already established rapport.

Read the whole article if you have a chance. There is always a pecking order, a social hierarchy. Some new people will challenge and they become a threat and people have to choose sides. Other times people will stay distant and flit among groups. Others will seek to join an existing group.

Lots of people are on the outside and do a lot of observing. And we end being invisible.

I know when I dressed up for work, people treated me very different. I was not invisible, but was instead fussed over. I appeared to be a person of power. Of money. Of status. So people sucked up, a lot.

Now that I have to deal with back pain, I don't care so much on how I look, and I am invisible. And like I said, that does have advantages. Nobody pressures me. I can do what I need to do without interference.

I did not know how to handle the fussing, because that wasn't me. I didn't like much. I didn't like increased social demands.

I wish I was invisible to most people, so I can disappear and listen to what the bastards say behind my back.

I also don't like to be noticed, hence why I want to be invisible to who I don't wish to see or talk to.

And yes, I do feel like "a fart in the wind" as my contribution to any situation is nothing. It's as if I just waste my time hanging around you know.

now, i wish that people around would be invisible to me. i don't want to listen to the sounds there are doing. i want to be left alone and undisturbed. there is this girl next office who doesn't stop talking and although i don't like listening to music, i cannot work without headphones stuck into my ears.

Exactly what happens to me. In a conversation, if there's just 2 of us that's ok, as soon as a third person comes along I'm left out.

yeah, it happens to me a lot too. and that's one of the few things that make me sad. if it is possible, i just go away doing something else. it's because of the smalltalk we are not so good at...