People Watching vs. Watching People

I could never get into "people watching". I've had girlfriends who could spend hours just sitting and watching people as they walked past, figuring out what celebrities they looked like, commenting on "I think that jacket would look good on you" or "Why can't my hair look like that?". I've tried to do it, I just can't. Back in college I had a job in one of the restaurants in the student union, and would usually have a half-hour to kill between my Latin class and when I could punch in, which didn't leave quite enough time to head back up the hill to the dorm to fire one up and get back to work on time. So instead I'd sit drinking coffee, trying to kill time, and would attempt to "people watch". It never stuck - I couldn't care less what type of jacket that guy's wearing, I couldn't afford that fancy pair of sneakers, and I had a girlfriend (who was cheating on me something furious, though I couldn't prove it at the time), so I wasn't interested in ogling flowy skirts and the tight fitting sweaters above them (sorry, I never subscribed to that whole "just because you're on a diet you can't look at the menu" thing. Weird - you'd think that for the asshole I'm made out to be that I'd have no problem with that. Go figure.). What I did realize, though, is that I really enjoy "watching people". Slight of the hand with the words, huge difference with the meaning, the former being almost passive, the latter being mostly active. Example:

People Watching: "Honey, look at that couple over there - she looks like Uma Thurman, and he has a nice shoulder bag."

Watching People: The guy over there (with the arguably nice shoulder bag) is trying to cover his wedding ring with his thumb and the strap on his "nice shoulder bag", she doesn't have a ring and is fiddling with a MUNI pass from last night, and he's furtively looking around before trying to give her a peck on the cheek without being seen by someone he knows.

Or something like that. When I was a bartender, watching people came in very handy. Dark room, people ranging from currently sober to on-their-way-to-tight to approaching being cut off. Is that girl here by herself, and is that guy who just walked up a friend or someone who's harassing her? Is that guy bothering the door girl her friend or someone who needs to be encouraged to keep walking? Is that a friendly exchange of arguing or a fight about to break out? That kind of thing. Most of the time there's nothing nefarious going on. Some of the time a good hard stare to let the person know you know suffices. Infrequently do you have to reach for the two-foot Maglite under the bar.

I think a lot of this comes from growing up in the restaurant and hotel industry. You're trained to watch, observe, be there but not be there, notice how people are reacting to things. Granted, not everyone who's worked (or is working) in that industry has or ever will have those skills (I used to work with this guy named Tim (real name, and I wish I could remember his last name... what a waste of air) who couldn't find his ass with a mirror and a road map, but he was a pretty boy so he skated by just fine), but it's a mostly legitimate generalization.

On my way to work yesterday morning I walked past the Sir Francis Drake. There were thirteen people in the vicinity of the entrance to the hotel (three behind me crossing Powell at Sutter, one walking down Powell, three walking up Powell, two inside the overhang of the entrance of the hotel, one cute blond in a white jacket and powder blue running pants having a cigarette just outside the entrance to the hotel, one crazy guy walking towards the cute girl, one six-foot-one doorman decked out in his Beefeater uniform, and myself). As I walked closer, only three people noticed the crazy man bothering the cute blond - the cute blond, the Beefeater, and me. And the Beefeater was watching him. And all it took was a good hard stare.