ONE thing I’ll say for this lockdown, there is time to think, time to be nostalgic – have you seen all the Me at 20 faded photographs on social media recently – big hair, big earrings and massive shoulders – and the girls look very Bananarama, too.

Out of boredom one evening I launched a blurry one up there. Slightly awkward, standing with my cousin Noreen on my first trip away from home, I glistened and gleamed with shiny black hair and bright red lips. We went out in London, to a club and I remember feeling ‘seen’ for the first time. It was like the much over-used shot in films where the camera moves through groups of people in a club. The little glances, and smiles from those we passed, people half-stepping out of our way to let us through, striking up interesting conversations with people we met for the first time. The attention was intoxicating and addictive. I confess, I loved being seen.

Fast forward 30 years later, when I found myself in a club in Glasgow on an impromptu works night out. Two well-toned young men are sitting opposite me and my friend, every so often their gaze straying towards the dance floor. There are lithe girls in heels and bits of string, cleverly gyrating and somehow keeping the strings in place, blaring Latin American music that causes a disturbance in my right eardrum and strobe lighting that plays havoc with my varifocals.

Instinctively, I bend over, almost hitting my head off the table and scream, fishwife-like, above the music: “There you go boys. Is that better? Can you see now?”

Seeing the Me at 20 posts inevitably makes us compare then and now, and for me came the realisation that in the space of 30 years I’d gone from being seen and enjoying being seen, to being invisible and I wondered how and why this happened and how I feel about that.

Discussing this phenomenon with friends, I’ve discovered I’m not alone. One 59-year-old fumes indignantly about being jostled in queues, cut up on pavements and ordered-over at bars by people standing behind her. “It’s as if, with my youth going, I’m not relevant or important, and that’s quite hurtful.” At parties or social gatherings she feels her voice isn’t heard and her opinions don’t matter. Talking to her puzzled me. With her sharp mind, great wit and an attractiveness I have always admired, she was the last person I would have thought of as invisible.

Another friend, a comedian, has an explanation. She thinks we might be projecting how we are feeling about ourselves as we age. For her, it is more about how we, as women, were conditioned aged 20 to see our value. “My whole self-worth, when I was young, was based on how people, but mostly men, saw me. If they complimented me I valued myself. Now I’m older I don’t get the compliments so much, but whereas on the one hand you can lose your self-worth because of that, or like me, you can change the yardstick.”

In the intervening 30 years she’d come to use a different yard stick, and maybe for some of us, we haven’t quite got there yet.

But it’s more than that, I think. I have sat at the dinner table with my teenage sons and felt invisible. The way they jabber away excitedly about online strategy games or bits of new tech to one another, reminds me of Wendy Craig’s character Ria in 1980s sitcom Butterflies – happy to see her boys cheerful and animated but ostensibly a ghost in her own home. And, as if fulfilling the prophecy, we are encouraged to cut our hair short, wear more neutral tones (to blend into the background perhaps), and tone down our make-up. I call it “Invisibility Chic” and it should really be resisted at all costs.

Having said all that, there’s a lot to be said for invisibility too. In the age of the selfie, Instagram and now, of course, video calls via Zoom, being ‘seen’, is 24 hours of being camera ready, with all the insecurities that can bring and the endless stream of looks-related comments on the social media feed from all corners of the globe.

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Being ‘seen’ is being seen through the lens of a skin-tone softening, teeth-whitening filter that, once removed, leaves a sense of intense disappointment, and gut-wrenching fear of what people might be thinking or saying about the unfiltered material.

Invisibility brings with it that sweet liberation of knowing that the world’s gaze is averted elsewhere leaving us the power to just be our authentic selves, and to be comfortable with that. The good news is, after four long weeks of lockdown that is definitely a much-needed characteristic.

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