Having had
facial piercings for a while now, I've had the chance to accumulate and
organize people's reactions to my piercings into several categories.
Classic Reaction
Regardless of time or place, most people can't seem to get past this question. I'm not sure why physical pain is such a pertinent issue to everybody, or why people with multiple ear piercings are so frightened by the "pain" of other piercings, but this is 90% of the people who ask me questions about piercings:
Question: Did that hurt???
Answer: No, not at all! Sticking metal into your body is an unimaginable bliss!
Only if I'm in a really sarcastic mood will I say that. Normally I'm a lot nicer and I tell the truth: no, there wasn't much pain at all. *shrug* Nobody believes me when I say that though, so I think I'm going to have to start making up horrific stories complete with squirting blood and convulsions of agony.
Talking to your Piercings
A common experience with people, especially those who are working behind desks or in stores, is that instead of talking to you (and looking at your eyes) they will talk to your piercings. I'm not bothered by people looking at my piercings, they're there, why not. I'm not bothered by people gawking or staring, because that's their perogative to do what they want. But, when somebody is talking to me, I just wish they would talk to me.
I used to believe that it would be difficult to tell the difference between somebody looking in my eyes or at my nose. Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious. I get this unconscious reaction to start ducking downwards so I can get my eyes at where other people are looking. This is especially more obvious if your piercings are elsewhere, like a labret or lip but much harder to tell if you have something like an eyebrow piercing.
Parental Reactions
Is that real?
Or, I'm sorry, we're going to cut you off financially now. Thank you, and have a nice day! We know you did that just to piss us off because you're rebelling and it was done with the sole intention of hurting us.
Or, if you have nice parents you could even get: Oh wow! Where can I get one?
Unconscious Fumbling
To make the story more clear, I have my nose pierced. One time this summer, I was waiting for the bus after a random trip to Best Buy and standing by the stop. An older couple walked up with their very young daughter in tow. She was probably about 4 years old, and wearing a little cute dress. I smiled at her, because I really like kids. She didn't react at all to me, and just stared, wide-eyed. Then, completely mystified, she just started touching her own nose as if she couldn't believe that I had mine pierced. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a coincidence or just a one time occurance, but the more and more I see people touching their nose whenever they see me, I'm beginning to wonder whether this is just some sort of mutual unconscious reaction. It's not just kids either, people of any age groups seem to do this. Maybe I'm reading into nose touching too much *grin*, but there has to be something there.
Awkward Interjection
The other night I was at Chili's with some friends from school. I'll admit that it was almost midnight and the waitresses were either drugged or really tired. So, I was sitting in a booth with two friends, and one of my friends was ordering. As she was mulling over what she was going to get and started to open her mouth to give her order, the waitress suddenly interrupted her and goes "Wait!" She looks at me, I give a confused look around the table having no clue what she's about to say, and, as if hardly able to contain herself, blurts out "I really like your...your, uh...(she points)...they're so, uh...original!" (Uh, no?) I didn't know what to say to her, and so I replied with a curt thank you.
I don't mean to seem like I'm
whining or
complaining about the way people react to my piercings. I'm not sure what sort of
myths exist about people who are pierced being nonsociable or people hating pierced people, but my experience has been that more people have been friendly to me than ever before. More people are willing to talk to me, to hear what I have to say, and to simply be nice to me even if I've never met them before.