Hey it’s Friday! Time to talk about another thing humans aren’t very good at, and as the cold weather descends, I’ve got one at the front of my mind: We do a pretty bad job of gauging how much other people notice us. In my case, I like to think of this as Seasonal Self-Consciousness Disorder.
Every fall, I have to begin leaving my home dressed as the Michelin Man. This is not because I dislike being cold (although to be clear, I DO dislike being cold). It’s not because I love the cutting-edge fashion statement of knit beanies or the hilarity of trying to point to things with mittens on.
It’s because I get colder than the rest of you, and despite the fact that you have probably never noticed this, I feel bad about it.
I have Raynaud’s Disease, which is more an inconvenience than a disease really, but I suppose Raynaud’s Irritating Thing That Keeps Happening at Inopportune Times doesn’t have the same ring to it (it is sometimes called Raynaud’s Phenomenon, though, which is kind of exciting). When I get too cold—typically in weather below about 60 degrees, but also in aggressive air conditioning or even a warm patio as I hold a frosty kombucha—my body cuts off the blood flow to my fingers and toes and they turn a corpsely shade of white.
For the post-Industrial Age, non-mountaineering woman, this is not particularly dangerous. As long as I can get my fingers warm again within an hour or two, nothing is going to snap off, mortify, or get amputated. There are, admittedly, some quality of life issues—I can’t hold a pen, zip a jacket, or buckle a kid into a car seat during an episode—but these are more humbling than threatening.
The real problem for me about having Raynaud’s has never been about how it aches or impedes, but rather about how it looks.
Call me shallow, but cadaver hands are not cute. Nor are the hand and footwear I require to enjoy activities other people are doing in stylish puffy vests and Converse. Well, okay, it’s not that the clothes themselves are bad, exactly. Outerwear is a thing right now, REI is a thing, and shearling-lined boots are a thing, so my Raynaud’s armor is not unstylish, as far as winter fashion goes, but it is asynchronous.
See, I’m wearing the same clothes you would wear if we were going snowmobiling, except we’re going to a pumpkin patch and it’s 55 degrees out. I’m shoving chemical hand warmers into Gore-tex mittens and firing up my electric-sock/boots-with-the-fur combination in late September, and the rest of you are wearing jean jackets and flats.
Or, I’ve opted for style over circulation and skipped the mittens, and now my fingers look like something you’d stick in a Halloween candy bowl for effect.
In either case, I am acutely aware that I am not blending in with the foliage. And unless I’m diligently policing my thoughts, both the mittens and the undead look make me feel self-conscious at best, and like a big doofus at worst. I perceive this to be a BIG DEAL—even though it almost certainly isn’t—that EVERYONE IS NOTICING—even though they almost certainly aren’t.
This isn’t really seasonal, nor is it a disorder, of course. It’s a normal and annoying part of being a person, and it’s called the spotlight effect: we think other people notice us a LOT more than they actually do.
I share all of this not because my suffering is so great (Raynaud’s Inconvenience), but because I suspect I’m not alone in my grown woman self-consciousness. I suspect that many of you also still feel, at times, a pressing need to fit in, blend, and not be a doofus. It probably doesn’t have as much to do with outerwear for you, but I’m guessing it has its own tender or irritating touch point in your life.
It’s embarrassing, though, because it feels like such a middle school problem, right? We’re grown adults and we want to believe the days of pressing our noses against the glass of an Abercrombie store are gone, and yet somehow we find ourselves doing it again. We’ve just moved to a different store with slightly different, less emaciated mannequins.
It’s the life store, is what I’m saying. The store of life. Which does smell slightly less offensive than an A&F, generally speaking.
Like the comparative optimism I wrote about last week, the spotlight effect likely isn’t going away any time soon. Being hyper aware of our appearance to others is about conforming to social norms, which is in the source code of the human brain. Our cave ancestors wisely did not wish to fight saber-toothed kangaroos on their own, so we learned to fit in.
So, I can’t offer any solutions, but what I can offer is a gesture of open arms, a welcome to every grown adult who still feels like they are walking into the middle school cafeteria alone from time to time. Whether you are forgoing the mittens you really need, skipping the meeting rather than walking in late, questioning the hairstyle you always wanted to try, or still, STILL wondering if you’re going to be the only person showing up someplace with a mask, I can offer you this:
SAME.
And this: it’s not a malfunction. It’s just who we are.
AND this: if you know where to find really warm mittens, send me a message.
