I mostly used to keep quiet. I found just wearing my uniform to parties was enough. However, when in civvies I'd not say anything, but my wife, would sometimes let slip I was a pilot. I hated when that happened, but put up with the sudden thigh fondling. Though I hated it even more when they suddenly stopped the fondling and asked me if I'd got a big watch.
Girls who were old enough to know better suddenly had eyes that had become twice the former diameter. "Oh, aaaare you?!" They'd ask. The interrobang was invented for questions like this.
I was never quite sure if they had a string to their blouse buttons, but they'd spontaneously pop undone revealing a lacy bra that was clearly designed in black highlights along Lambert's Conformal Conic Projections - which would have my eyes tracking south to equatorial regions. My navigation was often interrupted by their boyfriend, who always seemed to be half the girl's height and only have one tooth . . . in the middle . . . and make the best use of it looking savage.
Then there'd be the disbelievers. More mature looking, often in power-suit and intense spectacles. Big planes? Erm, yes. Quite big. Then always, always, 'you don't carry passengers . . . do you?' Erm, yes.
Pause for disbelief mixed with areyouallowedtoleavaplanewhenyouseethepilotisadork - look.
'Live passengers'?
'Well, some of them are.'
Such sophistication would walk off with a set look of disbelief.
Then there's the sensible chap in a sports jacket. "What do you do?" He'd ask,
"Me? I'm a pilot for ACME Airways. Yourself?"
"Oh, I"m the chief pilot of British Airways."