Appearances

For the past three years I've participated in a longitudinal study at a New York hospital. Every few months I report to an office, where I'm given a blood test, an interview by a nurse-practitioner, and finally an exam by the doctor running the project.

Recently I returned to the hospital for this routine drill. The nurse-practitioner, a sturdy, balding, unsmiling man with a no-nonsense manner, who had interviewed me once before, asked me the same questions he had asked me the last time, the same questions I'd been asked for the past three years. But after asking the usual questions - about, for example, appetite, the frequency of bowel movements and urination, and the presence or absence of pain, he asked me a new question. "Can you take care of yourself?"

Bewildered, I asked him what he meant. "Can you dress yourself, bathe yourself, and eat without assistance?" Stunned, I answered, "so far." I had walked with him from the waiting room to the examination room. Hadn't he noticed my firm tread? Did he believe that it was even remotely possible that I could not perform any of those functions? True, I'm a bit bent now and I'm only a few weeks shy of my 79th birthday, but there are centenarians who can feed and bathe themselves and go to the bathroom without help.

Still, the nurse-practitioner was asking what he considered to be an appropriate question. During the past few months I must have crossed an invisible threshold. Will I have crossed another before my next visit? Will he want to know if I can tell him that day's date or name the president of the United States? After all, I'm just as likely to be no longer compos mentis as that someone will have to feed me, perhaps even more likely.

His question reminded me of the frequent lack of correspondence between our perception of ourselves and the impression we make on others. When I strode into the waiting room, dressed in a new tweed sports jacket and a snazzy bow tie, I had seen myself as a fine figure of a man. After the interview I saw what the nurse-practitioner had seen, an old man in danger of losing it.

From now on, I hope I remember that interview when I start to think disparagingly about people who dress or groom themselves in an unbecoming manner. Up until now, I would wonder if they understood how they looked. But now I realize that of course they don't. That heavy woman thinks that her tight jeans makes her look thinner. That old lady thinks that her bright lipstick, plunging neckline, and mini-skirt make her look younger. That man with the comb over thinks that no one will notice he's almost bald. That guy who's never changed the size of his belt and now wears it under a great bulge in his stomach thinks that people won't notice his girth. But what harm are these illusions? Isn't it better that these folks see themselves as looking good than to know the truth? I wish I could still think of myself as a fine figure of a man. But who would be fooled? As I came home, a middle-aged stranger, sitting on a packing crate in front of a convenience store, called out to me, "How y'doin', Pop?"