...how long would it take for anyone to notice? My mind frequently wrestles with this question. Not that I feel like I'm in that much danger of randomly dying, so, to make it a more palatable discussion, let's rephrase the question and say: If I were to disappear tonight, who would notice? The obvious answer is that, in all reality, very few people would notice. My mom calls me on occasion, so she would probably think it's odd that I'm not returning her calls. I would give it about 3 weeks before she started to think that something fishy had happened. My employer would notice that I was missing in a day or so. I don't miss very many shifts, and certainly not without communicating first. But, ultimately, work would go on, and it would be no more than a brief inconvenience in their lives. I would be fired and forgotten about as quickly as the thought crossed her mind. Goraxypox would probably notice after a couple of days because he's my roommate, and even though he doesn't spend that much time outside the confines of his own room, I think he would eventually find it odd that I wasn't home. Sleeping Beauty would probably notice the soonest, if I didn't return text messages and phone calls.
Now, I'm not about to disappear or test my hypotheses; it just strikes as being an interesting topic because it brings forth the idea of importance. How important am I? Can I even determine my importance to people based on who would miss me? Perhaps someone at work would notice right away, someone whose life won't be affected by the removal of mine. But do the observation skills of another render me important? I am not typically someone who needs to feel important to others because I know that I am important to a select few and that is enough for me.
~TPP
