I am used to having strangers change how they act towards me depending on how I'm dressed, because I have 2 modes of dressing, either I am all hippy and in rainbow colors, or I'm all goth in blacks and dark red and skulls (occasionally I mix up the 2 and confuse people). When I'm all in rainbows strangers on the street and in shops and things all treat me like I'm an approachable friendly person, they make a lot of small talk and generally are nice to me, when I'm all in black...it's not that people are actively mean to me, but I get treated a lot more distantly, strangers are very unlikely to start up conversations...that kind of thing. I'm sure I'm not acting any differently towards people, I think it is just the judgement people make dependent on my clothes. It feels like the Halo effect (more information here).
Right now it feels like I have a super halo effect going on, it doesn't matter what I'm dressed like, strangers seem to see me and go "big pregnant lady!!! yay!!!" and it doesn't matter what I'm wearing, everyone treats me with special niceness and happiness at my pregnancy. From people in shops, to nurses in the hospital, everyone is just a little bit nicer than I'm used to. It's all slightly strange.
Though I keep reading about how it can be a bit overwhelming or offensive to have people constantly mentioning your size and wanting to touch your bump, but I've really not found this at all, you can see people clocking the bump, spotting that I'm obviously pregnant, but they don't say anything about it until me or Coyote confirm that I'm pregnant, and so far not even close friends have tried to touch my bump, in fact people seem to be very careful about not making physical contact with me, and apologizing for even an accidental brush with my bump. I wonder if it is a cultural thing, the websites that have mentioned feeling overwhelmed or insulted were American, maybe in England our habit of politeness is too ingrained to risk accidental offence. Maybe our version of going "Oh my god your huge! *grab bump*" is to just be a bit friendlier and nicer than normal.
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