Invisible in the City

I grew up in a fairly small town, everybody knew everybody (and still does for the most part) and it's impossible to go to the grocery store without running in to someone. Then I left small town for bigger town, smaller campus private college in Maine. It is really hard to completely disappear amongst 1,500 classmates.

Something happened to me the spring of my Junior year when I went abroad, I discovered what it was like to live in a city. I spent 6 months in St. Petersburg, followed by a year in Moscow after graduation. I realized that the more people there are the lonelier a person can be. It is a true conundrum.

Now living in Boston it is very similar, I know more people here, but still I can go for days without running in to anyone I know and what I have discovered is, unless you are skinny and gorgeous, you are invisible. No one turns their head to look at me (except the occasional drunk man) and I have gotten very comfortable with that. I don't yearn for the attention, I like the anonymity. I wonder if that is one of my fears about changing.