Awkward! What People Do When They See A Middle-Aged Lady With a Black Eye

I have a black eye.

Yeah, I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t want to admit that I got it by walking into a wall at 5:00AM on Tuesday morning. It’s pretty ugly. Or as my brother said when he I texted a photo to him: “Holy crap!!”

I wasn’t going to write about it because I am truly embarrassed by my recent history of ridiculous accidents and multiple trips to the emergency room over the past year. My growing reputation as a klutz disturbs me, and I didn’t want to draw attention to my latest mishap.

The only reason I am writing about this is because having a black eye has allowed me to observe some interesting and surprising psychological and sociological public behavior. First off, unless you hang out at boxing clubs for seniors, you probably don’t run into many 55-year old women with shiners. But in case you don’t know how you’d react to seeing me with a black eye, I’m going to break it down for you.

If you are a business person and you see me waiting for or sitting on the trolley, you won’t notice me because your attention will be focused on your cell phone, e-reader, or book. If you happen to notice that I have a black eye, you will deliberately attempt to make it look like you’re gazing past me. If you’re sitting right next to me, mere inches from my bruised face, you will not, under any circumstances, mention it. You will pretend you don’t see it, which you and I both know you do.

If you’re under the age of 18, you’re not going to notice me at all, because middle-aged mom-types are completely invisible to youths. Even if I jumped in front of you, waved my arms and pointed to my eye, your face would still barely react with a flicker of recognition that I was there. I don’t mind this because, honestly, right now I don’t want to be noticed.

And, by the way, I would never jump in front of you, wave my arms and demand your attention. I’d leave that to your mom.

My most interesting observations occurred during Mass when everyone stands up, shakes hands and says “peace.” In this instance, I was up close, face to face, shaking hands with churchgoers in and around my pew. I didn’t know these people, and I couldn’t hide behind sunglasses, like I did earlier when I went for a run.

“Peace be with you,” I said pretending that I didn’t have a big, ugly black eye that everyone could see.

If you are a woman, God bless you. You would look straight at my face with unflinching determination and keep eye contact with me a second longer than usual, as if to prove that my injury didn’t scare or detract you from the important peace at hand.

If you are a man, your eyes would instantly focus on my cut and bruise and you would react with visible shock, immediately removing your gaze from my offending face by closing your eyes or turning your head, so as not to be confronted with my injury.

This bothered me and, after church, when I explained this to my husband, I tried to pry out of him some explanation as to why men reacted this way. Was it pity? Disgust? Revulsion? Did they think something more sinister happened, other than I walked into a wall?

My husband, who never likes to be responsible for speaking on behalf of all MAN-kind, only offered this:

“Maybe they didn’t like seeing you hurt.”

Okay. I’ll accept that.

But this week, if you see me and I still have the remnants of a black eye, please say “peace” to me and mean it.

***

By the way, I’m not going to post a picture of my real black eye. I really am embarrassed.

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/135868045@N05/28315731143″>Eye Spy</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>