Last Saturday, I went to a birthday party for a friend. It was in a lovely house in a quiet cul-de-sac in the outermost suburb, the sort of peaceful environment that you'd imagine full of kids and dogs, wine and dinner parties, healthy living and marital bliss.
As the guests arrived, I stood and shook hands, realizing that I was woefully underdressed in a tight pink tee and biker jacket. I'd expected the party to be about jeans and t-shirts, but instead it was all slacks and conservatively cut skirts. I sipped my red wine and convinced myself that the difference meant I was cool.
My friend's brother was there with his new wife. I'd met him briefly a few months ago. He wore spectacles and a goatee that seemed at odds with his effeminate blond hair. He was skinny and wore rumpled clothes, as if his mother still dressed him.
His new wife was lovely. She was in her early twenties with brown hair streaked with blond highlights. She wore a camel skirt with a brown cardigan, soft and expensively cut. If I hadn't known what she did, I would have taken her for an office administrator from her efficient manner, prim horn-rimmed glasses, and lingering perfume of command.
She sat herself properly on the floor by her brother-in-law and addressed herself to me. "You're from the United States?"
"Yes," I said.
"I'm going there next fall." It was a statement, the emphasis falling perceptibly on the I.
I knew what she wanted me to ask next. I complied politely. "Where are you going?"
"Chicago. I have familiy there. Then we're going to Prince Albert Island in Canada."
In every statement she spoke, she stressed the I and the we. I was supposed to be impressed, I knew. She then spent the next fifteen minutes telling me everything they were going to do. It was all about her and her family and the epic nature of the journey.
After she went to the kitchen to pour herself a drink, my escort (who'd never met any of these people before) turned to me and whispered, "Do you like her?"
I shook my head wordlessly.
Have you met people like that before? People who are so afraid that you won't notice them that they have to insert themselves into every conversation?
She wasn't consciously being rude. There was a lot more going on behind the surface.
She was a woman with a fear of being invisible. Unless she made sure that people noticed her, she feared that no one would pay any attention to her. And that fear was kept well-fed by her partner, who kept shushing her when she was talking or telling her to sit down when she was dancing, telling her that she was making a fool of herself.
Before they got married, her partner gave her a Valentine's Day card that said,
You may think you're fat and ugly,
but I love you anyway.
She didn't take offense, or if she did she merely accepted it.
Because her partner didn't accept her, didn't see her, and didn't listen to her, she reached out in the only way she knew. She became the person who always makes every conversation about herself, who speaks a little too loud and a little too shrill, and who displays no genuine interest in other people.
Unless you get the love you need at home, you take that need into all your social encounters. She was crying out to be noticed, and not even her own husband noticed her. He rarely gave her physical comfort or the benefit of his full, undivided attention. To him she was the child. So, like a child, she grew used to making a scene until someone noticed her discomfort.
I know so many women in a similar situation. Some women deal with their invisibility better than others. Others simply accept what their husbands tell them and fade away. Luckily for her, she was fighting back, even though her tools were less than adequate.
We all deserve to be noticed without having to fight for attention.