When I’m sitting in the dining hall between classes or sitting outside on a nice day, I people watch.
Yeah, yeah, I know staring is rude. But people watching is a prime example of harmless entertainment to resort to when you’re bored. Everyone has a story, everyone has a different life — it’s incredibly interesting to observe their manners, their cadence or their attitude from a distance.
A college campus is basically the perfect setting for it. The dining hall alone is a goldmine. You have people rushing in and out, being able to tell exactly who is crunched for time. And then you have the ones who linger for a bit, sitting down with their friends for what seems like hours. Some people sit alone, headphones on, completely oblivious to what’s going on around them. It’s the same space, but everyone is moving differently.
The best part is that you don’t really know anybody — that’s what makes it so interesting. That kid walking fast with his head down — is he late to class or avoiding someone? The girl laughing loudly with her friends — is she genuinely happy, or did her friends just cheer her up after a rough day?
If you’re like me, you start building these little narratives in your head, not out of judgment — most of the time — but out of curiosity. It’s like creating these miniature stories about people you might never see again.
You can find out a lot about someone without even hearing them speak. The way they carry themselves says a lot. Head high and moving with purpose gives off a completely different energy than looking down with shoulders slightly hunched.
As a communications student, it’s actually quite difficult not to notice these things. Nonverbal communication honestly says a lot more about someone than if they were actually speaking. The way people present themselves, react to others, take up space — it all sends a message.
Once you start noticing, you can’t really stop. It’s like an addiction. It makes you wonder what you look like to people in passing. I often ask myself if my RBF makes me unapproachable or if my naturally fast paced walk makes me look stressed.
It’s also just genuinely entertaining. It’s basically live, unscripted TV, except it’s right in front of you and not on a screen. I could always scroll through social media when I have downtime during the day, but people watching makes me feel so connected to my environment. I’m actually paying attention to what’s in front of me — something that rarely happens these days.
Obviously, there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Don’t pull out a pair of binoculars and straight up stare someone down. You can easily tell who’s observing and who’s staring — don’t be a creep, you’ll end up getting flamed on YikYak.
The point of people watching isn’t just to sit there and judge, it’s more about the curiosity aspect than anything else. There’s something so grounding about realizing that everyone around you has their own stressors, their own thoughts and their own problems that have absolutely nothing to do with you.
It could make you a little more empathetic, too. You start realizing that the person who looks irritated might just be having a bad day, or the person who seems distant while talking to their friend might just be tired. People watching pulls you out of your own thoughts for a while, reminding you that you’re just a campus character in everyone else’s eyes. You’ve probably been people-watched before, and they have probably wondered what kind of day you were having.
So yeah, people watching may get a bad reputation sometimes, and it could feel a little awkward to admit that you enjoy doing it.
At the end of the day, you may never know the story of the person sitting across the room from you — but for a moment, your lives are overlapping in the same space at the same time. Sometimes, at least for me, that’s interesting enough.
