Observers United! {The People Watchers Club}

[NevilleYardley]

Good Evening Brass Goggles!
This thread is for those among us who for what ever reason, watch people!
Anywhere, anytime, we sit and observe people going about their lives and record (or not) their activities for any, or no reason at all.
Please feel free to share stories, or observations you have made here.
Seen anything interesting in humanity lately?
~N. Yardley

[darkshines]

I LOVE people watching, especially from a pub or cafe, preferably from above. I think its a very SP pastime, as Poe wrote a story based on it, The Man of the Crowd, in which "After an unnamed illness, the unnamed narrator sits in an unnamed coffee shop in London. Fascinated by the crowd outside the window, he considers how isolated people think they are, despite "the very denseness of the company around". He takes time to categorize the different types of people he sees."

[Dr. malcolm moriarty]

This used to be quite a hobby of mine. I would go to the market and wait in till I saw a lovely young women then follow her around just to observe her every move.

Sometimes I would photograph her with out her knowing. Then came the excitement of following her to her home. After dark, I would sneak back in to her yard and look in her windows, just to see what she was doing.

This watching could go on for days or even weeks, following her from home to work, the shops anywhere she went.

This used to be a wonderful hobby of mine. Then came that dammed Court ordered restraining order.
It is sad, we are living in a Police state, believe me.

[Indefinitive]

People watching has to be one of my favorite things to do. Sometimes I'll just hop on the bus or the train and go to the end of the line and back just to see who might come on that interests me. The train is easier to people watch on, though, because when it's underground, I don't even have to look in their direction because it's all reflected in the window. My favorite subjects to watch are young mothers and their newborns, and groups of teenagers, typically girls. Groups of girls are fun to watch, because most of the time, they make it either really easy, or really difficult to see who their leader is - and there always is one. Sometimes old couples are really fun to watch, too.

[NevilleYardley]

Wow, I'm not alone!
I know exactly what you mean, Indefinitive about groups of teenage girls & their leaders! It's rather funny seeing the underlings reactions.
Any more out there?
~N. Yardley

[MWBailey]

I used to sit in the park and sketch the people going about whatever they were doing...but then people started posing...

[vincentjhyde]

I never used to like people watching, but just lately I've begun to do it more and more, and it's very interesting. Especially in places where you don't know anyone, and there's lots of people. Like on Sunday I managed to go to London and it was great fun to do it there.

And hey, I'm Vincent! I'm new.

[GideonFaile]

I've found that a wonderful place to sit and watch is the local Barnes and Noble cafe.

A story from just the other day:

There was a young man, perhaps mid-twenties, sitting at a table across the way from me. He wore a pair of no-rim glasses low on the bridge of his nose, and he had a book in his hand. It was open, but he hardly ever glanced at the words. I'm not even sure if he knew what the book was. He was constantly searching the area near the store's entrance, and he appeared very nervous. Unsettled, anxious. After ten or twenty minutes, a young woman came in (about the same age; perhaps a bit younger). She spotted him and came over, when he stood to greet her and pull her chair out. After that, his entire demeanour changed.
I hadn't seen him smile at anything, while I'd been watching him, but now his grin never left. He was completely still; not nervously running his fingers through his hair, as he had been. Her simple presence calmed him, entirely.

I left, soon after, but the last I saw, he was fetching her a drink.

There have been others, of course. I'll find one person, at random, and just sort of idly watch them. I always thought of my town as boring, until I began the habit of People Watching.

[Utini420]

I see y'all, over there, seeing me, over here.

Ya, I be people watching, all the bloody time.  Not always happy with what I see, but I'm watching.  The real trick is to keep your eyes on those people, while still running your mouth at these people.  At least, that's what I like to tell myself.

[Indefinitive]

I've discovered something interesting.

We're probably some of the most interesting people to watch when we observe someone else. I watched a woman people-watch today on the bus. Her eyes were constantly flicking between a young pregnant woman and her husband, and a group of teenagers, and her lips would twitch in different directions depending on which way she was looking. It was pretty interesting to watch.

[darkshines]

I like watching people from above. Not only can you see their demeanor, the way they dress and interact wih others, you can more readily note their pace, direction and gait.

[Steam_Radio]

Iv been sitting on Paddington station today for 3 hours waiting for a train back home and the time passed so quickly watching the world go by , so many different shapes , sizes , creeds and colours walked past , i must admit to being a people watcher so im glad im in good company.

[Picaroon]

Gods, it's no wonder reality television is such a big thing.

As for me, I do most of my people watching in my university's cafeteria. They speak so loudly, I also have really good (albeit, annoying) sound quality! I also like sitting on a random bench in some random area looking at some random person, devising some random character to them.

[MechanicalMouse]

We by things from ebay quite regularly and I have to drive to collect large local items. Driving 20-30 miles, looking at all those houses, thinking of each set of lives that it contains, I find myself overwhelmed by the absolute enormity of humanity.

I often find myself looking at people wondering what their lives are like. I suppose it doesn't help that deep down I feel that the world is somehow is not real and I don't like looking at people as nameless NPC's, I have a need to somehow identify them as full people.

[SolarCenturion]

Well now, it is my very job to watch people.  I work in security.  I work two jobs, one I can't talk about, the other I can 

The one I can talk about is my weekend job at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

You want to talk about Quality people watching.

There's too many individual things I've seen to even begin, but rest assured, any future interesting events I will relate here

[MechanicalMouse]

Well now, it is my very job to watch people.  I work in security.  I work two jobs, one I can't talk about, the other I can 

The one I can talk about is my weekend job at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

You want to talk about Quality people watching.

There's too many individual things I've seen to even begin, but rest assured, any future interesting events I will relate here

Is there an correlation between your two jobs?

[SolarCenturion]

Well now, it is my very job to watch people.  I work in security.  I work two jobs, one I can't talk about, the other I can 

The one I can talk about is my weekend job at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

You want to talk about Quality people watching.

There's too many individual things I've seen to even begin, but rest assured, any future interesting events I will relate here

Is there an correlation between your two jobs?

lol, yes, but the real question is this, is that correlation spying or security?  *giggles*

it is also security, I'm just not at liberty to say where.

[Captain Quinlin Hopkins]

I do dearly love this as a hobby in my spare time(when I had some).  I would love to go walking around the city and watch the various patrons on their way to who knows where.  I sketch, and one of my favorite times was when I was perusing the architecture on the route of the underground shops here in Dallas**.  I would stop at various odd points in the trek and sketch the scene.  I'd been on this journey for a few hours before I happened upon a young lady, napping on an overstuffed couch in the lobby of a hotel.  It was a combination of the lighting, her clothing, the rush of passerby's going to and fro for lunch, and the Music wafting by being played on a grand piano in the corner.   It was simply surreal.   Sometimes people find what they are searching for. That time, that place, was an absolute harmony between the rush and the relaxation.  It's finding a mixture of these two that offers the most for your mind to focus on.  

**For another description of the walk, a bit on the dystopian side:
http://www.johnnyamerica.net/archives/2005/09/01/11.35.58/

edit: and if you happen to be local,  visual guide to a few of the entrances. 
http://dallastunnels.org/category/entrances/

[sadishappyfordeeppeople]

As an actor, writer, (and recently addicted steampunker) I am a people observer by nature...
Last week I was waiting for a friend for drinks, but I was early and he was late so I wandered into a nearby coffee shop.. which I had a pen and paper at the time. 

"She sits, staring out the window.  She drinks her coffee slowly, but she doesn't enjoy it.  It's just a way to pass the time.  There are two large pizza boxes on the table, decidedly out of place in what coincidentally enough, looks like a coffee shop from a town of Steampunk.  There is a pot belly stove in a corner, and above it hangs a 1940's poster of a plane flying over the mountians with the caption that says something about how great the coffee is."

"After a few minutes where I can't tell whether she is sad or bored, she sighs ever so slightly, rises - her blue dress falling around her knees - picks up her pizza and leaves."

I wonder what her story was?

[Grace Adget]

I very much enjoy watching people. I can be quite shy, but I also enjoy making eye contact and smiling, which makes complete strangers want to tell me their life story. (mixed blessing)

I also have a job where it is very important for me to watch people. I am a massage therapist. The way a person moves lets you know where they are having pain or loss of range of motion. The way a person breathes lets you know whether they are relaxed or if an elbow on their back is a bit much for them.
The way a person fidgets and other nonverbal communication lets you know if the person is really on your table for something other than massage and might be a threat.

[Aeryenne Tederich]

I'm a definite people-watcher. I'm also, thanks to a love of human psychology (morbidly instilled by reading Thomas Harris' Lecter series, I won't lie), an insatiable people-analyser - if a person is talking to me, it's extremely likely I'll be analysing everything they do/say (and everything they don't do/say) non-stop throughout the conversation. It's a terrible habit, it really is, and certainly a mixed blessing, but it has aided me in the past when it comes to figuring out when a person might be trying to conceal something from me.

[Ms. Squid]

Oh, people watching, I've been doing it for as long as I have the memory capacity. Being an artist it comes in handy in many ways as well, you get to see the real characteristics of a person when they are going about their own business and feel like no one is watching. So many times I've caught the most awkward positions and actions. Okay, so I use my sketching as an excuse to be a busy body, but it's just too damn fun catching small glimpses of other people's lives.

[MWBailey]

Standin' on the corner, Watchin' all the girls go byyyyyy...

[Theosophus Grey]

Caution, Mr. Bailey, lest a constable arrest you as a masher of young ladies... 

[Miles (a sailor)Martin]

As long as it was a Lady consable i don't think he'd mind