The Three Types Of [Pretend] Invisible And Ignoring People

I wrote last month about the phenomenon I’ve been seeing while housesitting in St Ives in Sydney, where walkers that I pass while I’m walking go out of their way to PRETEND that they didn’t see me, and ignore my glance, and my wave of acknowledgement back at them, when obviously they have seen me.

There are three types of ignorers.

Firstly, there are those walkers who are religious. I say this because the only reason why they behave this way is that they must be praying that I will disappear and they will not have to “interact” with me.
These are the walkers who when they see you coming, they just stare straight ahead of themselves, hoping that you don’t speak to them, or just plain hoping and praying that they themselves become invisible.

Or they hope that your memory of their behaviour is immediately wiped from your brain’s hard drive and their intentional rudeness is forgotten.
Then there are those walkers who look the other way and hope that you haven’t seen them see you and then change their gaze direction away from you.
These walkers are easily observable because the speed of reverse rotation of their atlanto-axial joint is so fast, that I’m surprised they don’t sever their spinal cord as a result of that reverse force.

Their heads spin around like something out of a movie…

The speed of movement is that impactful, it’s like watching an automobile crash-test video at regular speed.

The only person who sees this movement, and thinks that the ignorer has succeeded in not being seen, is the ignorer.

In real life, they look as stupid as a child playing hide and seek with their hands over their own eyes, believing that if they can’t see the seeker, then the seeker can’t possibly see them.
Finally, there’s the pseudo-cunning ignorer [or PCI].
The pseudo-cunning ignorer, or PCI, is the walker who sees you, but tries to create a distraction that they feel legitimises their reason for looking hard in the opposite direction to you.

For example, there’s the walker who sees you, and then crosses the road looking back over their shoulder in the opposite direction to you, as if they had never seen you and as if you weren’t even there or were a consideration in their decision to cross the road.

This morning Jayne and I saw a couple walking who did exactly this… the male saw us, and then pretended to be looking back at his wife as he crossed the road to the other side to avoid passing by us on the side of the road we were all on, and acknowledging us.

And as would be the way in suburbia, about fifteen minutes later we came across the same couple again, at another point on our walk… and low and behold, they were forced to pull the same PCI move on us, with the same disappointing [for them] result.

BECAUSE WE SAW THEM. And they know we did…LOL!!!

In both of these examples, we all know that it’s one thousand times more hospitable to acknowledge the other person with simply a smile, or a wave, or a greeting.

In fact this afternoon I passed another walker who greeted me with

“Good morning”

Which was so much better than the behaviour of the neck breaking ignorer.

Years ago…

Years ago I was discussing this same issue of the TEN FOOT RULE with my hairdresser who told me he had a similar problem at his salon.

He told me that sometimes a “customer” would walk into his salon, and stand at the front counter, and that a hairdresser cutting hair nearby [within ten feet of the customer] would look up, see the arriving customer, and then look down and away and continue cutting hair, without any acknowledgement or greeting from the hairdresser to that arriving customer.

When my hairdresser questioned his team member as to why they looked up at the arriving customer but did not greet them, the team member replied back to my hairdresser:

“Wasn’t my customer.”

To which my hairdresser responded:

“But they are a customer of the salon, and a customer of one of the other hairdressers here…”

And then he said:

“How do you think that customer feels, when you look up at them and then looked away without acknowledging them?”

“And what do you think that customer thinks about our salon, based upon their interaction with you? Do you think that their interaction with you could have been better?”

Ultimately…

Ultimately, our actions, or lack of action, will be what people will judge us on, and judge our business on, and judge our suburb on…

Are you putting your best foot forward to provide an ultimate customer experience, or an ultimate social experience, for all of those who you interact with?

When I’m walking around the rural village of Burrawang [where I live], I always make an effort to wave and acknowledge all the drivers who pass me on the walk, even though, because of windscreen angulation, I can’t sometimes see their faces. [but I know that they can see me].

Last Friday here in St Ives, a lady driving past me in a 4WD smiled and waved to me.

And I know I didn’t know her, and I know that she hadn’t met me, but maybe she had seen me walking a day or two before, and felt it was reasonable to acknowledge me with a wave.

And although she didn’t HAVE TO wave to me, and although it mightn’t have made a big difference to the universe, just like the starfish in the starfish story, it sure made a difference to me….

Is it really that difficult to wave, to smile, and to say “Hello”?

Of course it’s not.

But the impact of that wave, that smile, that greeting… that impact is profound…

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