On having a black eye

[menthe_reglisse]

I've had a black eye for about 10 days now. It's been a very interesting experience.

I'm interested that I was surprised how much it hurt. What was I expecting? A purely cosmetic injury once the initial pain of impact had faded? I think I rather was. Black eyes are such a visual gag that perhaps I'd only thought of them from the outside as a visual

Comments

[menthe_reglisse]

I suppose you could argue that maybe you, as a newcomer, are paying more attention to your colleague's appearances than other people. But I suspect it's more to do with general tendencies to notice changes to people's appearances or not. There is also, of course, the 'notice but don't comment' possibility - my friends and colleagues may have been noticing and assuming all sorts of things too awful or too mundane to mention. I suspect they weren't imagining custard creams at a gig though (see below).

[thekumquat]

Interesting about the narratives - when I got a black eye aged 18, it was assumed I'd been in a riot at a violent metal gig (to be fair, this was when Guns+Roses were getting 6-page articles in the Sunday Times about their crowds causing havoc and a fan dying, and I'd just been to see them).

Yes, I got the black eye from the GnR gig at Wembley, but it was from a custard cream biscuit lobbed during a giant good-natured food fight that just happened to get me in the face. I don't think anyone believed that until a few years later!

[menthe_reglisse]

Oh, that's a much better origin story than mine!

[thekumquat]

I couldn't eat a custard cream for nearly 15 years after that. Vicious little bastards. Had a mix of colours for the best part of a fortnight (including black!)

Only other black eye I've had was when the idiot PE teacher decided to make us play doubles squash and someone who'd never played before swung her racket back... Actually I had one for a day or two once a few years back when I walked into a door, so had the 'yes, really...' conversation at work quite a lot.

[minnesattva]

::waves:: Hello! haggis recommended your LJ to me. I wouldn't normally jump right in, but having read

a humorous tone that I think you wouldn't get for most other injuries. Or would you for a broken arm or leg?

I have to say that I did get that for a broken foot (though the cast went up to my knee, so it looked the same as a broken leg). I got that all the time the inevitable question and the light-hearted tone. People older than me sounded almost as if they were chiding me for it, albeit (at least sometimes) sympathetically. Like you'd talk to a much younger person (I was 18 when I broke my foot). Maybe because being injured or disabled, temporarily or longer-term, makes people more likely to be patronizing? That can certainly try to disguise itself as a joking tone.

[menthe_reglisse]

Ah, thank you, that's interesting to know. There does seem to be something about plaster casts that's seen as inherently humourous. Too many get-well card with cartoons of someone in plaster, perhaps?

Forgive me for not friending you back - I like to keep my Friendslist to people I know IRL and I don't think we've met (remind me if we have!), although it looks as if our paths are bound to cross at some point!