Five Easy Steps to Being Invisible
by Laurie Wilhelm
Here are a few ideas for those of you who want to avoid drawing attention to yourself and being noticed. If you find you’re already feeling invisible in social situations, chances are that you’ve probably mastered the following suggestions.
1. Ignore Everyone Around You
Paying attention to others takes work and wastes time. It also seems to encourage them to want to interact with you. Some might even think you like them. By ignoring everyone around you, chances are good that they’ll ignore you too.
At work, don’t greet or acknowledge anyone – colleagues, staff or employees or else they might see you. If you don’t want to be promoted in your career, add your boss to this list also. Bosses are less likely to promote invisible people than ones who everyone knows and likes so if she doesn’t notice you, you can stay in your comfy cubicle for another ten years.
2. Avoid Conversation Whenever Possible
Don’t engage in discussions or even small talk – this may demonstrate interest in someone else. Be careful. You don’t want to appear amicable or they may seek you out at meetings or social gatherings for a bit of friendly chit-chat. Here are some specific tips on avoiding potential conversations:
- Stay away from highly-visited areas like the infamous water-cooler and coffee station.
- Go to the cafeteria after everyone else has gone through the line and take your lunch back to your desk.
- Stand at a distance from anyone you know if you’re waiting to take public transit. If you end up sitting with someone you know, you’ll likely be forced into a conversation.
Talking to others means that you might get to know them or, equally bad, they might get to know you. Then it’s a ongoing verbal dance of discussions, idea exchanges, meaningful dialogues, opinions and even jokes. If you show good conversation skills you may get invited to join the group for lunch or after work drinks. Spending social time with others will probably make you much less invisible.
3. Stay away from social gatherings
Speaking of spending social time with others…
At the office, this includes not only the above mentioned lunches and after work drinks, but also festive occasions such as birthday, anniversary, and baby-on-the-way parties. Outside of work, avoid going out with groups of friends – especially if it’s a situation where you might meet new people; this will only lead to increasing your make-yourself-invisible workload.
Decline invitations – if they were mailed, say they didn’t arrive, if they were sent electronically, say your email is down, get call display to avoid potential telephone invitations and close your Facebook account.
The best way to be invisible in public and at social events is not to show up.
4. Opt out of any team or group activities
Let’s face it: you can’t be invisible and be a team player at the same time. Don’t sign-up. Don’t offer to participate. Don’t help. Don’t look interested. Keep your eyes on the floor when someone is looking for volunteers. If you are in the unfortunate circumstance where you are part of a team, keep to yourself. Do only what you’re obliged to do and no more. However, this doesn’t mean to be nasty or negative in action or word. You don’t want people to dislike you, you just want to be invisible. Invisible people are neither liked nor disliked.
5. Always sit in the back of the room so no one knows you’re there
Sitting at the front or the middle lets people see you. Find a seat way in the back of the room. Better still, try to get a seat in the last row and on the aisle. With no one behind you and no one on one side of you, you’ve reduced the chances of someone talking to you by 50%! The back of the room is a great place not to be noticed. Until people have eyes in the back of their heads, you can be pretty certain of being completely ignored by everyone in front of you. If they can’t see you, you’re invisible.
If being invisible is your goal, just follow these five easy steps and you won’t be seen or heard. Best of all, you never have to work on your communication skills or social skills and no one will know you were around.
photo©iStockphoto.com/4×6
