No time to stand and stare

There's more to a starer than meets the eye, says Paul Carter

I get stared at a lot. An awful lot. Even when I’m asleep. I’d say I probably get more viewers in one day than a repeat of Terry and June on ITV4.

It’s been such an omnipresent part of my life for so long that the vast majority of the time I don’t really notice it, or at the very least, have learned to tune it out. The one situation in which it regularly features on my radar though is when I’m in confined spaces with other people, like on public transport. You can’t fail to notice people staring at you on public transport in London, mainly because making eye contact with ANYONE in any circumstances whatsoever is to mark you out as some sort of Dickensian villain.

Therefore, most mornings, I notice at least several times in a journey that I’m being gawped at from various quarters along the way.

The thing is, not all starers are the same. After years of anthropological research on the ground, I’ve categorised them into three distinct types – each employing their own tactics, methods and reactions.

First up, and probably most common, are the Subtle Starers. I don’t have a problem with these, after all, we’ve all been one at some point, there’s no shame in it. Your mum’s probably one. These will look out the corner of their eye, for as long as they can – until you catch them. Then they shuffle awkwardly or pretend they were reading the paper and that’s that. Like ships in the night. A fleeting engagement and it’s over.

Then you get the full-on flabbergasted. These will fix their eyes on you as if they’ve just discovered the secret of creation. You’d think these were the worst, but they’re not, you can actually have fun with these. I consider it my life’s mission to try and defeat this worthy foe, but after years of bringing out my whole arsenal, I’ve yet to find a chink in their armour. Staring back, smiling, performing Wagner’s entire Ring Cycle, nothing works. This group is also interesting in that it has sub-categories.

These vary in scale from “holy-batshit-what-the-hell-is-that” to “utterly agog”. The latter is rare, which is good as it is potentially fatal.

Perhaps surprisingly, the worst kind of gawper is: The Repetitive Glancer. Now I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m sorry, these people are just plain weird. They exhibit all the characteristics of the Subtle Starers, except, as the name suggests, they keep coming back for more. It’s like they love getting caught. Like it’s some sort of odd battle of wits. Actually, I’m weirding myself thinking about them. Either that or I’m totally misunderstanding them and they’re just crushingly shy people trying to come onto me but find it difficult to make eye contact.

And on that note, I’m off home. I could do with the attention.