In one of his ‘Dilbert’ books, Scott Adams asserted that when out in public, a middle-aged white male of average height or below is basically invisible, especially to younger people. (I believe he went on to describe how this helped him by allowing him to observe people for his writing).
I’m 5’7", but I was younger than middle age when I read this, and I didn’t give it much thought. But I’m 53 now, and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something to it.
By invisible, I don’t mean, “Pretty girls don’t smile at me”. I mean, young people sometimes don’t notice me when I’m standing right in front of them.
A typical example: I once walked into a Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant lobby for lunch. The place is not especially busy. The seating hostess is standing at a podium handling the menus. I assume she will greet me when she finishes what she’s doing momentarily. I wait maybe 10 seconds.
Then, a middle-age woman accompanied by a girl of around 12 walk in and stand next to me in the lobby. The hostess greets her, and asks, “Two?” (IOW, Are there two people in your party?) The woman answers by turning her glance hesitantly over toward me, as if to say, “Wasn’t he here first?” The hostess realizes her error, and apologizes to me. She asks me to follow her to my table. On the way there, she apologizes again, awkwardly trying to explain her mistake. Please note: she was not a clueless, insensitive person. She seemed sincerely embarrassed and self-critical.
Has anyone else noticed this? A colleague who is about twenty years older than me (and around the same height) says he has long encountered it.
Any idea why it happens?
I have wracked my brain trying to remember if I was less than cognizant of middle-age and older people when I was a kid. My parents were much older than usual (mom and dad were 42 and 66 when I was born, respectively), so I may have thought of older people differently than most kids do.
