Today, as I have commented on before [1], I wore contacts for the first time in more than a decade. Going into work, I wondered how easily people would notice that I was not wearing my customary goofy glasses, but instead had contacts. Some people appear to have noticed immediately, asking me about them. Some people noticed that something had changed, and asked what I had done differently since yesterday. Others did not appear to notice at all, and my supervisor took about half the day to notice it himself. I tend to be amused at noticing what changes with other people, and I also tend to be curious to see if others are as observant where I am concerned. It would seem in life that there are a lot of people who simply are not very observant at all, and that is a reality that must be accepted even if it is not always enjoyed.

Ironically enough, this afternoon, I got to hear from my neighbor in a cube farm about a particular experience she had where she was very unobservant herself. At a layover in Hong Kong, she was stranded for the night and did not want to stay in the airport, so some quick-thinking airline employee got her and the person she was traveling with a cheap room in a dark hotel room with a partition between the two twin-sized mattresses on the floor and no lights except for some red lights that left them itchy in the morning. But at least the room was cheap, right? While as she was telling this I could guess exactly what kind of hotel she stayed at, she admitted that she did not realize until later that she had spent the night in a Chinese bordello, even after seeing some of the young ladies there. Then again, this was a person who sits in the desk next with me and never once noticed during the entire day that I didn’t have my glasses on, so clearly observation is not a strength.

I know I have had my share of unobservant moments in life, where my inattention because my mind was otherwise occupied in “absent-minded professor” mode led to embarrassing and awkward situations. I imagine everyone else has had the same sort of problem, where husbands have ended up in the doghouse because they did not realize that their wives got a drastic haircut, for example. There are times, though, where it must be admitted that we take advantage of others being unobservant because it makes it easier for us to do what we want to do without having to explain or justify ourselves or lie like a rug to seek to avoid getting into trouble. Of course, people who are usually observant may not always notice what others are trying to throw in our attention, and people who seem not to observe anything may observe precisely what we wish them not to notice. We must be careful in all things not to either overrate or underestimate the perception of those around us, lest we be either disappointed or embarrassed, fates that we all wish to avoid.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/those-blurred-eyes/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/brand-new-eyes/