When I go to London, I revel in the relative anonymity I enjoy there: the fact that a walk down the street isn’t punctuated with all-too-frequent nods, chats and how-you-doings. I have now found a simple way of achieving more of this anonymity in Lewes High Street. I have started wearing my hair in a ponytail.
Let me explain. I was talking to somebody this week who told me that, though he was seriously short-sighted, he didn’t wear glasses. He had got along without them so far (he is in his early 50s) and didn’t see any reason to make his world into a crisper, clearer place. He figured that his internal world, the world of thoughts, had developed more than it might have because he wasn’t as aware as others of the visual world around him.
I discovered I was short-sighted when I was about fourteen. I tried on a friend’s glasses, and suddenly I could see better. It was quite a revelation. I think in the period I didn’t realise I needed glasses, I formed a similar ‘head-in-the-clouds’ way of going about the place, and because the period of my life was so formative, this mannerism set itself as a template, even though I have almost always since worn glasses or contact lenses while out and about.
On a number of occasions since I started with the ponytail, people have stopped me in the street when I haven’t hailed them.
“Sorry, I didn’t recognise you,” I say.
“I didn’t immediately recognise you,” they reply. “I had to look twice. You look quite different.”
So why hadn’t I recognised people, if it was me that had changed? I can only assume that I usually rely on some sort of signal from passers-by before I greet them. As this signal has not been immediately forthcoming, I have been walking past them, concentrating on my thoughts, without noticing them. My new look has been rather liberating.