Now you see me, now you don’t…

Can you not just fake it and pretend my looks haven’t changed?

For the second time in as many months someone I know has failed to recognize me.

The last time was in a coffee shop where I was standing with a friend when a person we both know well came up to us.

“Hello Wayne!” he said and gave my friend a big hug. They started chatting.

I waited patiently to say hello. I waited a bit longer. I started to feel like that person at the grocery store trying to sell credit cards who people pretend they can’t see.

Finally, I said. “Hey James, what am I, chopped liver?”

I could see by the look on this face that he was thinking:

Why is this person bothering me? How does he know my name?

I hope I have some spare change. A few seconds passed. That’s when I knew he wasn’t kidding. He had no idea who I was.

“I used to be Paul Benedetti,” I said, chuckling.

“Oh my goodness,” he said. “I never would have recognized you.”

It’s hard to know how to respond to this. Weeping in despair is an option. I chose to be diplomatic. “Well, we haven’t seen each other in a long time.”

(This was untrue since I had bumped into James at the grocery store a few months before.)

He did not take the out. “No, that’s not it,” he said. “I just wasn’t sure it was you.”

Now I was really unnerved. Like all mature men, inside my head, I’m about 35. Looking in the mirror each morning, I realize that’s a complete fiction. I think I actually look about 45. My wife laughs at this nonsense and says, “You look OK — for a guy close to collecting his CPP”. She considers this a compliment.

A few weeks later I was at an event. “Oh,” said a woman. “You don’t look like your picture.”

“Haha,” I said. (I didn’t laugh, I actually said “Haha” out loud which makes you seem a bit crazy). “Well, I have my glasses on.”

Again, they did not take the facesaving (literally) bait I had so politely provided.

“No, that’s not it,” she said. “You don’t look like what I expected.”

Now, I realize my picture could use an update, but it is fairly recent and by that I mean taken in this decade, and in my view, I haven’t changed a bit.

This is clearly delusional. My theory is that this problem affects men more than women who can maintain a consistent physical appearance more effectively than we can.

First, unlike women, most males don’t dye their hair – except for politicians, Italian barbers and all Greeks.

If you are Greek and offended by this last statement, please feel free to complain to the Greek Consulate. Good luck getting anyone to answer the phone, especially over lunch which usually runs from 11.30 to 4 p.m..

If you are offended by the lunch comment, please feel free to call the newspaper’s complaints department, which was recently downsized and is now staffed by a deceased person.

Without dye, most men go grey. Which changes their appearance pretty dramatically. That’s if they are lucky. Many have no hair left to go grey. The result is that they shave their heads. This means that by about 50, almost every guy looks more or less like Howie Mandel.

Once the hair goes, most guys do something women never do — they take steroids and buy a sports car. I’m kidding (sort of ).

They decide it is a good idea to grow facial hair, usually a beard. Some try the three-day shadow, others go with the Smith-Brothers-Cough-Drop look. The result is what I call the “Dave Letterman Effect” — one minute you are a clean-cut guy in a suit and a month later, you’re Grizzly Adams. No wonder people don’t recognize us.

Finally, as scientists and your wife will tell you, your ears and nose continue to grow after everything else stops. So, as the years pass, you look like you, minus hair and plus beard – but with more nose and ears. Think Jimmy Durante.

So, the next time you are out and someone says, “Oh my, I didn’t recognize you” just rub your bald head, stroke your beard — and smile.