Visual descriptors

I posted earlier about describing a person by race, and the trauma this caused me over the past few years.

Ok, maybe trauma is too strong a word. Mild social discomfort. That's more reasonable, I guess.

While I've come to terms with referring to people by their race (not always convenient if I don't know their race - I once caused offence to a Greek girl by admitting she looks a little bit Lebanese, but whatevs, we were good buddies. It only came up because she asked, because she looked Lebanese enough that people made the mistake. It was on her personal FAQ.
It's for the most part not too difficult to describe someone in those limited occasions where it's necessary to do so... for instance, if you're really shit at learning and remembering names. On the other hand there are times when someone's key characteristic isn't tied in with something noble like their heritage.

Would someone be offended if I referred to their glasses? Maybe not, unless they are nine years old, and I call them four-eyes or something. But that's my individual insensitivity rather than any standing taboo or indiscretion, so I guess it flies. Glasses are pretty normal these days, because we're all using our stupid eyes for stupid visual things like books and video games instead of hunting, gathering, and... whatever else people did before books and video games.

(Shit, what did people do? The world must have been really dull pre-Renaissance. Just saying. Suck it, 14th century! You got nothing on Assassin's Creed... huh.)

But if someone has a weird birthmark on their face or they're fat you might not want to draw attention to these things, unless you're deliberately being unkind, in which case... high five! No, not really. Stop being a douche, douche.

I remember wanting to bleach myself when I was eight years old because a classmate assured me that by the time I was an adult, my freckles would have joined up and I would be orange from head to toe. The possibility was less than appealing to me.
Luckily I had the sense to ask my mother if it was alright to bathe in bleach before just trying it out, and I guess she put me off the idea because I am here twenty years later, writing this, and not dead.

But if you're socially appropriate (and not eight years old) you're unlikely to point out that someone has a big smear on their face that looks like they were scalded by recently-boiled tomato sauce. Or maybe you'll spit into a hanky and say "c'mere, you got something..." and dab at the edges of it. Your efforts will slowly peter out as you realise your error, your diligent scrubbing with gradually slow pace like the jaw of a man who realises that instead of spaghetti, the fork he put in his mouth mostly contained centipedes.
The person will stare at you, their eyes gleaming with shame behind a mask of passive calm. Your face will glow with your own humiliation. Both of you will wish yourselves into death.

Ever ask a fat woman if she's pregnant? Ever ask a well-groomed dude if he loves the cock? Sometimes social awkwardness does not come from within, it is thrust upon us. Be cleansed in the fires of shame, and rise like a phoenix of interpersonal aptitude!

Maybe if you know a guy with a big hairy mole, you'll stop relying on words when you're referring to them. Let's assume his name is Pete, but there is more than one Pete in the office. You're fucked!. You'll go up to your colleague and say "hey Marty, where's Pete?" and he'll want to know, do you mean normal Pete, or Pete with the fat mole? Marty twiddles his finger around his left cheek, as if caressing imaginary three-inch long hairs sprouting from an invisible growth on the side of mole-Pete's stupid face.

You nod, knowlingly, message communicated. Marty is on the same page here, everything is cool, and neither of you were overhead discussing what can only possibly be Pete's parasitic twin, which he feeds with a combination of catfood and pig blood twice a day. Probably.