Going out and pretending you don't want to be recognized

There are many reasons not to want to be recognized. Most are glamorous or dangerous, or both. There are many reasons to be alone on a Saturday night. Most are neither. But what if you're alone and you don't want to be recognized? Then you are suddenly compelling. This line of thinking inexorably leads to a pastime for Saturday nights when you happen to be alone — going out and pretending you don't want to be recognized.

Going out and pretending you don't want to be recognized doesn't involve a disguise. You just go out as yourself. But you are yourself with the added condition that you don't want to be recognized. In fact, it doesn't matter how you're dressed at all. If you are dressed well, it's more fun to be seen — and, unfortunately, you will not be able to avoid being seen. But if you are dressed poorly, you really won't want to be recognized.

You also don't need a backstory. Whatever it is — famous friends you want to avoid, supplicants demanding favors, bounty hunters — you're probably both sick of thinking about it and resigned to whatever happens.

And you don't have to avoid places where you're likely to be recognized. Pretending you don't want to be recognized is no fun unless there is some chance that someone will know who you are. Coffeehouses and bookstores are good places to go out and pretend you don't want to be recognized. Movie theaters and cemeteries are bad places.

Going out and pretending you don't want to be recognized frees you from the obligation to be in a group. You must have a pretty good reason not to want to be recognized. Therefore, you must have a pretty good reason to be alone. People who see you won't know that you don't want to be recognized, but they will figure out that you belong.

If you go out and pretend you don't want to be recognized and you are recognized, you can chat idly for a while and vow inwardly to move out of this provincial town to New York, where you can be anonymous again. If you live in New York, you can vow inwardly to move to Middle America, where you can have a simple life again.

If you go out and pretend you don't want to be recognized and you are not recognized, you can come home and say, "That was a successful evening."

— Julia Lipman (julia@flakmag.com)