THE HOW-TO ON ANONYMITY
This takes a lot of ingenuity. Do not try it unless
you have the training or are very creative.
- Do not make eye contact with anyone.
- Do not do anything normally considered obnoxious unless you are in a setting where everyone else is doing it - like a frat house.
- Dress like everyone else in whatever setting you intend to find yourself unless you are the only member of your sex in the room, or you are grown up and they are not.
- Do not effectively understand what is going on around you. Concentration and understanding tend to attract. Float as much as you can. A blank mind attracts little attention.
- Never offer to help, or be polite, or let someone else go first, type of thing. People get impressed because it so rarely happens.
- Be the first to leave and the last to come in. If this can not be arranged, be otherwise preoccupied with something on your clothes, the wall, out the window - just never under something. Curiosity is uncontrollable.
- Never complement anyone.
- Never ask any questions of a presenter unless your question is so inane that no one will dare look your way.
- Bath scrupulously but do not use anything which smells different than the environment in which you will find yourself - like wood or concrete.
- Learn to walk naturally. Takes some practice because any hesitation or quickness or unbalance will give you away.
- Do not do anything irritating or offensive like being smarter than everyone else in the room.
- Do not look at or appraise other people. They feel it no matter where it comes from.
- Do not change places. Make a decision and stick with it, unless the pain or the offensiveness of a situation is beyond your endurance. But, then you will have to start the process all over again, so you might as well leave.
- Do not react to anything unless everyone else is reacting. Must be on your toes for this one, especially if you are following the drill and not really listening or aware of what is going on.
- Do not become famous unless it is in some obscure field that only 1/100,000 of the human population has ever heard of before. Most importantly, do not tell anyone.
- Never go anywhere if you absolutely can avoid it. Unless, of course, your absence will be noted.
- Move when everyone else moves - stay with the flow. Sometimes takes coordination, but following someone else's back will usually be enough.
- Always sit or stand in the back. People might want to turn around to see who is behind them but ordinary common courtesy prohibits such movements most of the time.
- Leave as soon as you can. If you have taken care of all of the above, no one will miss you.
- And finally, practice anonymity in front of a mirror. Try to hide anything which might stand out. If you turn away from the mirror and can't remember who you were looking at, or even what you were just doing, then you have succeeded.
© copyright 2008 J. Morgan Thomas All rights reserved
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