What Does It Feel Like to Be Looked At?

The backseat of my car was filled with college ruled notebooks. Four or five of them, bent and shoestamped, abused, etc. When I got it into my fool head to write, and had nothing handy, I’d rush out and buy a goddamn notebook. But the impulses were unkind, lightning at first and devolving into a dull, far away roar of thunder, so nothing got finished and through chance or circumstances the notebooks ended up back there, where sometimes I couldn’t get to them anyway. That’s why I ended up buying a leatherbound journal. I carried it everywhere. Usually I had a pocket it could fit into. It worked great, other than the ample amounts of ridicule that go along with carrying that thing and being observed while writing in it. Think about that for a minute. I’m asking you to think about what it feels like to be observed.

One night, when the journal was half full, I was having dinner with my parents at a restaurant. They didn’t know that I wrote; no one did anyways, no one that mattered to me. I always was hidden in plain sight. After dinner, as I was about to step into the parking lot. A man’s voice called from behind me: Excuse me. The tone was just like that. The tone was ‘time to beat ***’. So I turned around and looked at the guy. I was way bigger and thought he was about to make a terrible mistake. Then he said, “I think you dropped a book.”

Like a left hook to my world, everything inside of me sagged over and weighted down. The gears locked up.

And when I went back inside, there it was on the table. My mind on the table. There were so many people in there. It was so vulnerable. It wasn’t just a journal in the sense of daily records. It didn’t know the past, or the future, or time. It was poetry, fiction, my thoughts on philosophy books I had read. It was the most honest interpretation of me that existed.

I wondered how long I had left it. Was there enough time to… Who had been in it? Had they skimmed, or felt outrage, or found the print indecipherable? But more than that, had I been ‘looked at’, I wondered. Had somebody thumbed the pages and saw where no verbal footwork or social parlor tricks could misdirect? Some people are born masters of the covert. Not to imply there was anything worth hiding- that’s at best a subjective answer- but there was always the instinct to hide the true and show the fake, the stand-in that can be whacked at like a pinata or a strawman.

The pages grew eyes and there were chills down my spine, and nevermind the journal; any flash memory of it begs the question was I looked at, was I seen and by a stranger no less. No matter what I’m doing or how physically alone I am when I think of it, always comes the sensation of being looked at, gazed upon by a pair of eyes I can’t indentify or escape.

What does it feel like to be looked at?

Ooooh, I know what you're going through. It's happened to me several times. I have mental lapses that result in my leaving things here and there. My entire being is always in writing.

I have cultivated an indecipherable writing hand - or as my wife says - scruffy. So i have no problem.

Why don't you put your stuff online? Pseudonym, and, anyway, where's the best place to hide, but in a crowd of anonymous blogs?

This:

It wasn’t just a journal in the sense of daily records


I know the sensation - but wait until you actually do lose one, never to be retrieved

As someone disabled, usually not good.

And, I'm sure no one read your journal. The chances of a stranger actually reading another stranger's journal are slim in the first place, but once it's opened and it's seen that you're writing thoughts on literature, the chance of it being read drops to near zero, most like.

I have a friend who to be honest is notoriously known around town for being not so easy on the eyes as, say, a bowl of maggots, and after a late night he had to board a bus to college. He described the experience as

'You know you're in for a bad day when you get on the bus and feel everyone is looking at you...'

Your writing is good, Jack, I could almost feel the prying eyes. Reminds me of that song by Roberta Flack, "Killing Me Softly..with his song..telling my whole life, with his words..."
So to answer your question, in the sense of prying, then, kind of creepy...

But if you want someone to read what you wrote, how would that feel?

I know what you mean. How do writers cope with it ?

Hey, Jack, sometimes I think I'd almost kill to get somebody to read my work. In the increasingly narrow circle in which yours fooly resides, everyone I know prefers anything on the tube or the newspaper or on the Web to any scribblings this too-many-decades-a-wouldbe-writer may make. (I suppose I should take the damn hint!)

Look on the bright side-- someday, when you least expect it, a stranger might stumble upon your efforts and offer you a big publishing contract!

As the good book says, "Don't hide your light under a bushel."

It reminds me of that Wodehouse story where Gussie Finknottle was terrified of burly Roderick Spode, leader of the fascist blackshorts, and was told by Bertie Wooster that he should keep a notebook and write down any demeaning thoughts about his persecutor so that each time he read it he would bolster his confidence. So having written things like 'Spode has a face like a dead fish and probably wears fancy underwear', etc etc., he then mislays the book and is scared witless that Spode might find it.

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Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

What does it feel like to be looked at?

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I think anyone can be unnerved by being actually looked at, but if you're feeling watched when you're alone, then you probably need to talk to your doctor about it.

It's painful.

I don't think anyone I wouldn't want to has ever read my writing (and that would have been in my twenties -- I'm all grown up now and I don't hide my writing any more). But I *have* been looked at, in other ways. A secret of mine that I didn't want ever to be discovered, was. I have seen a person standing opposite me, confronting me by holding the evidence in front of my face.

I mostly try not to think about it.

Regards
DH

This is nicely written.

This line is revealing:

"It was so vulnerable."

In a strange way, it seems like the writer has a relationship with her/his stories, poetry, or ideas. In the notebook, they become something separate. They are representative of who the writer is. So if, the private suddenly becomes public without permission, there is a sense of violation. Even if, one does not know or suspects a possibility of violation, the feeling of vulnerability is still real. This can be a very uncomfortable feeling.

Have lived in Asia for most of the past 14 years. I'm a regular-looking white guy. Have been stared at countless times. I know you meant something else, but I sure have seen a lot of stares directed at me just for being a foreigner in some homogenous places in Asia.

I've heard friends and family say that they've "felt like they're being watched" when clearly no one was watching them. I've never felt like that before, I'm not sure what it "feels like" to be watched. It seems strange, the idea is similar to "feeling" when someone else is thinking about you, or talking about you when you're not around (ie. the "my ears are burning" wives' tale).

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Originally Posted by Vonny

Ooooh, I know what you're going through. It's happened to me several times. I have mental lapses that result in my leaving things here and there. My entire being is always in writing.

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Empathy, you know how it feels... but then, what does it feel like?

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I*have cultivated an indecipherable writing hand - or as my wife says - scruffy. So i have no problem.*

Why don't you put your stuff online? Pseudonym, and, anyway, where's the best place to hide, but in a crowd of anonymous blogs?

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A solution- but doesn't the original post suggest more of an experience than a problem? Paulclem, have you ever been really looked at?

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Originally Posted by MystyrMystyry

This:

It wasn’t just a journal in the sense of daily records


I know the sensation - but wait until you actually do lose one, never to be retrieved.

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Leave nothing to implication. What is that like?*

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

As*someone disabled, usually not good.

And, I'm sure no one read your journal. The chances of a stranger actually reading another stranger's journal are slim in the first place, but once it's opened and it's seen that you're writing thoughts on literature, the chance of it being read drops to near zero, most like.

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That's a rational answer aimed at an irrational target.

When they put their gaze to you, what do you imagine they see?

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Originally Posted by qimissung

Your writing is good, Jack, I could almost feel the prying eyes. Reminds me of that song by Roberta Flack, "Killing Me Softly..with his song..telling my whole life, with his words..."
So to answer your question, in the sense of prying, then, kind of creepy...

But if you want someone to read what you wrote, how would that feel?

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You can do better than 'kind of creepy',*
Cosette. Eyes cut through all fabrication and look at you. How does it feel?

And for your question, an answer: showing is much different than being seen. Maybe there's a rush involved, or gratification- some people seem addicted, huh?

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Originally Posted by prendrelemick

I know what you mean. How do writers cope with it ?

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*

What do you know, take lemick? Have you been looked at?

And to answer yours, no idea. Coping skills are sometimes amazing and untraceable it seems.

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Originally Posted by AuntyShecky

Hey, Jack, sometimes I think I'd almost kill to get somebody to read my work. In the increasingly narrow circle in which yours fooly resides, everyone I know prefers anything on the tube or the newspaper or on the Web to any scribblings this too-many-decades-a-wouldbe-writer may make. (I suppose I should take the damn hint!)

Look on the bright side-- someday, when you least expect it, a stranger might stumble upon your efforts and offer you a big publishing contract!

As the good book says, "Don't hide your light under a bushel."

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Everyone's Aunty is a highly practical lady. Surely that intellect is rounded out with more emotional depth. Aunty, asking you now, have you ever been looked at?

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Originally Posted by DocHeart

It's painful.*

I don't think anyone I wouldn't want to has ever read my writing (and that would have been in my twenties -- I'm all grown up now and I don't hide my writing any more). But I *have* been looked at, in other ways. A secret of mine that I didn't want ever to be discovered, was. I have seen a person standing opposite me, confronting me by holding the evidence in front of my face.*

I mostly try not to think about it.

Regards
DH

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Cheers, Doc.

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Originally Posted by jersea

This is nicely written.

This line is revealing:

"It was so vulnerable."

In a strange way, it seems like the writer has a relationship with her/his stories, poetry, or ideas. In the notebook, they become something separate. They are representative of who the writer is. So if, the private suddenly becomes public without permission, there is a sense of violation. Even if, one does not know or suspects a possibility of violation, the feeling of vulnerability is still real. This can be a very uncomfortable feeling.

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Precisely, jersea. You know it so well. Has it happened to you?

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Originally Posted by jajdude

Have lived in Asia for most of the past 14 years. I'm a regular-looking white guy. Have been stared at countless times. I know you meant something else, but I sure have seen a lot of stares directed at me just for being a foreigner in some homogenous places in Asia.

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Seems in a foreign country, where you can be singled out by phenotype, you are having the opposite problem. Maybe no one looks, maybe they believe they've already seen. But only you could say, jajdude?

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

*
I've heard friends and family say that they've "felt like they're being watched" when clearly no one was watching them. I've never felt like that before, I'm not sure what it "feels like" to be watched. It seems strange, the idea is similar to "feeling" when someone else is thinking about you, or talking about you when you're not around (ie. the "my ears are burning" wives' tale).

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But what if the eyes thay watch you when no one else is around see everything?



J

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Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

A solution- but doesn't the original post suggest more of an experience than a problem? Paulclem, have you ever been really looked at?

J

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Yes in a rugby ground once when I was paying rugby and in the process of bleaching my hair white from blonde with a particularly cheap and nasty hair bleachy thing. It glowed in the floodlights and all was quiet as the referee placed the rugby ball in the middle of the pitch and someone in the large crowd ahouted "OY! ALBINO!" and a thousand faces looked and cracked up laughing.

But that's not the looked at you mean is it? We've all been scrutinised in an uncomfortable way before - very uncomfortably sometimes - and that was probably when we were young and least able to deal with it.

As a middle aged man I am becoming gradually and comfortably invisible.

In response, I have had the notebook out of my control and panicked when I left it at a nasty person's house. How that happened, I can't say? Worse I had a colleague read a story of mine without telling me after I wrote on the back of one of my student's homework sheets. I was going to send it home. I had misplaced it in the wrong pile. Thank God she caught it, but I was miffed she read it. I told her that was bad form, but she isn't a writer and scoffed at me. She told me I should be grateful that she caught my mistake. She liked the story though.

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Originally Posted by PaulClem

Yes in a rugby ground once when I was paying rugby and in the process of bleaching my hair white from blonde with a particularly cheap and nasty hair bleachy thing. It glowed in the floodlights and all was quiet as the referee placed the rugby ball in the middle of the pitch and someone in the large crowd ahouted "OY! ALBINO!" and a thousand faces looked and cracked up laughing.*

But that's not the looked at you mean is it? We've all been scrutinised in an uncomfortable way before - very uncomfortably sometimes - and that was probably when we were young and least able to deal with it.*

As a middle aged man I am becoming gradually and comfortably invisible.

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A lot of interesting statements here. For your rugby story, what was your reaction to the situation?

The phenomenon of 'scrutinized in an uncomfortable way' is what this reader is poking at.

And what does it mean, to you, to
be invisible? What are the implications? Are you totally 'out of sight' and if so, is this learned?

Is this a sad thing?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jersea

In response, I have had the notebook out of my control and panicked when I left it at a nasty person's house. How that happened, I can't say? Worse I had a colleague read a story of mine without telling me after I wrote on the back of one of my student's homework sheets. I was going to send it home. I had misplaced it in the wrong pile. Thank God she caught it, but I was miffed she read it. I told her that was bad form, but she isn't a writer and scoffed at me. She told me I should be grateful that she caught my mistake. She liked the story though.

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A pretty comparable experience. But the sensation you felt right after you knew... what was that like?




J

Ok, from what I remember, it was that sinking sensation of panic. What had I written on that sheet? What THOUGHT had I proclaimed to the world? This is a work place, they don't know the crazy concealed locked up side. What crazy oozed out? Who would find out? When would the violation become real and have real consequences? This is a place or work, a school none-the-less. The story was about my crazy family that I visit in the septic hell none as NJ. That's all I remember.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

A lot of interesting statements here. For your rugby story, what was your reaction to the situation?

The phenomenon of 'scrutinized in an uncomfortable way' is what this reader is poking at.

And what does it mean, to you, to
be invisible? What are the implications? Are you totally 'out of sight' and if so, is this learned?

Is this a sad thing?

J

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At that time of my life I was a young chap trying to make a role for myself in social circles. I started relating the daft things that happened to me in an attempt to amuse my friends, and this is one of those stories - all true. My reaction was to add it to my stock of stories. I now know that it was an attempt to transform the sometimes negative things that happened into something that we could laugh at. It's a good strategy, and has served me well. I became, and I am still, a fool.

Taking it a step further, if you can be the one who can say the worst thing about yourself in jest, then you're rarely bothered by what others say.

Being scrutinsed in an uncomfortable way was a story I couldn't relate, but I had to deal with that one seriously. I think it could affect someone who was not prepared to move on from such experiences. There are advantages to having a thick skin, though the disadvantage is that you don't pick up on other's sensitivities so easily.

I first noticed being invisible whilst a tourist. At that time we were travelling for 6 months, and the feeling was that you were merely a ghost - albeit priviledged - passing through the scenes of others' lives. What impression do you make as a tourist? Perhaps a small and fleeting financial one with a laugh and a smile.

I don't feel entirely invisible now, but I am aware that this depends upon context. In the building I work I am one prescence among many, though my role makes me a little more prominent. In the street, there is an element of invisibility - the opposite sex notices you less and less as you get older. In terms of young people, I am virtually invisible, though to my peers I am there to speak to and of.

I know that the most invisible people are the elderly, and you can't help noticing that progression towards social ineffectualness. There will come a time when my usefulness is outweighed by my neediness.

Is it learned? It can be, but I think it goes with our city roles. I read a book once called The secular City that made the point that we need an element of non-communication, or invisibility, to get through the day. Imagine having to say a cheery good morning to hundreds on your commute? In a village - good, in a city, a pain.

Is this sad? Only in the sense that we all progress towards this state. Personally, invisibility offers a little insulation from the world after a busy day. On the buses, people are unlikely to talk to me - especially with my current haircut. In the end, loneliness is at times unavoidable, but a family mitigates this.

Sad? If you let it be, but there's always a funny story to be got.

Isn't it funny, the different hats we put on, jersea? And how awkward it feels when the lines of these fluid identities begin to blur? Who are we really? Are you the same you in the private life as you are in the professional one? Is one of these lives dishonest? Would be better to live more holistically, in terms of conception of self- and if so, why do humans seem so adverse to doing that?

PaulClem, you have the ability to articulate sophisticated things about human beings and have also revealed great depth about yourself. Humor as a survival tool- it's not hard to see that it's learned wisdom in that idea. Certainly your response was just a bit on the bleak side, though- turning invisible as we get older? Maybe you're right. Your sense of humor seems to be the answer to any attacks of existential angst. But what if you could change your worldview? Firstly, do you think it's possible for such a change? Or for the better? Could it be that what you describe as turning invisible to others is simply lack of initiative to socialize, perhaps something that occurs as we get older?

Thank you both for such interesting responses.






J

Thanks Jack.

It's certainly possible to change - and it could happen to any of us with trauma, illness or eperhaps a spiritual experience to name a few. I think our worldview subtly alters every day as our experience of the world alters slightly.

I certainly thin it's possible, perhaps even healthy to change worldview - or a least seek out and become informed about alternatives. At least then you can rub along with what suits or feels right to you.

I know what you mean about invisibility and socialising. I - we- don't socialise much at all, but it's not a problem. Children and economics. My job involves talking to and teaching a lot of people, so I don't see my invisibility as a symptom of my withdrawal - more of a fading out of certain aspects. I think that's inevitable.



I know what you mean about withdrawing as you get older. Perhaps that's normal, given the physical difficulties the elderly face. Life, at that end, seems to turn in like a spiral, and the space you use shrinks. Our old Auntie, who's 89, dosn't get out much at all. In Winter for weeks on end. Although she likes going out, it doesn't seem to bother her as much as it would a fitter person.

You and Paul have had a very interesting conversation. I agree with Paul's statement that as you get older you do experience a kind of invisibility. I think it is a nice way to escape from other people's curiosity or boredom. Who wasn't to be observed? But Paul does make a point that we can develop ways to become less self-conscious. Living in a more holistic way, no doubt, will help free up the need to wear too many hats. You are, who you are, and that's the hat that you want to wear all the time. I do suppose that the hat changes in terms of what we are doing, but not who we are. It's the goal to stay consistent in who we are as a person no matter what we do, SO that we can keep that hat on. If you are in a leadership position and manage people, you've got to be honest with who you are.

I suppose one of my points is that some things are private and are not meant for other people to read. I think we all have a right to move away from the public and experience calmness in privacy. Some people need boundaries between the professional world and private. I don't think it is dishonest, I think this discrepancy (if you want to think of it in those terms) make people more productive, calm, and relaxed when they are in the professional world.

Hope that clarifies or answers your questions.

There's something poetic about your last bit, PaulClem. A spiral turning inward. And going with what feels right- there's something to be said for that. It takes a lot more courage to make an irrational decision that you feel is right rather than following through a logical plan. Or rather, maybe it takes a lot of courage to break from a logical plan.

jersea, what you said about living holistically seems spot on. But in your second paragraph it seems you haven't abandoned all practicality. Maybe privacy itself is simply an act of personal fragmentation. Who knows? But this reader is inclined to agree with you- whatever the case, privacy seems downright necessary sometimes.

This reader thanks everyone for such good input. Almost everyone in this thread contributed something valuable.

jersea and PaulClem, thanks to both of you especially for making this exchange worth having.






J

Cheers!

Yes cheers. I enjoyed the exchange.

The spiral bit is from a poem I wrote, but which is not yet complete, and it is about the diminishing of a person's physical sphere.