I spent a day people watching and reveled in my insignificance

A young woman is inspecting the split ends of her near-perfect blowout, looking mildly uninterested in what her male counterpart is ranting about. A dark-haired, baby-faced boy is scribbling furiously in his beat-to-shit notebook. I am incessantly tucking my own hair behind my ear (a nervous tick I’ve acquired over the years, and one I’m particularly prone to when indulging in the miracle of caffeine) and a pen in hand, trying my best to ensure no one in this coffee shop can see how diligently I’m watching — and writing about — them.

I love to people watch. It is genuinely one of my favorite pastimes. Have an awkward date with nothing to talk about? People watch. Sitting on the bus with dead AirPods? People watch. Walking with your friends to class? People watch! 

How marvelous is it that the act of observing can be so versatile? My favorite way to people watch is to make up stories about the people I’m observing. The elderly woman with the quilt-pattern parka sitting across from me in the cafe is smiling; in my mind, she’s just received news that her daughter is expecting a baby. She’s a grandmother-to-be!

But beyond my tendency to be nosy, or whatever general interest I have in others’ lives, people watching is crucial to our social existence as humans. We people watch to glean information about how others live: what they do, how they do it and when they do it in social spaces. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Josh Ackerman, University of Michigan psychology professor, helped define some of the psychological phenomena at play when we people watch. Ackerman explained why we feel compelled to watch others in public and social spaces.

“We’re one of the best species at observational learning, where we’re able to pick up on information about the way to correctly perform a task or what the social norms of the environment are just by watching,” Ackerman said.

I felt inclined to agree with him. I know that I’ve found myself in new spaces, wholly unaware of how I should be acting, and I’ve turned to watching those around me to figure out what I should be doing. 

But while observational learning does play a key role in why we people watch, sometimes we do it just for fun. 

“I think (people watching) is also just (a) sort of information search,” Ackerman said. “What we’re trying to pick up on sometimes is really just like ‘What information can we learn that could be useful to communicate with other people in the future?’ That might mean things we can gossip about. It could mean things that we can use just as humor with other people.” 

I laughed at that remark. I think at one point or another, we’ve all been found guilty of reporting back to our roommates or friends the crazy antics we saw on campus that day. I mean, come on, we’ve all seen the fraternity pledges on the Diag making those ridiculous TikToks.

While the science behind people watching is incredibly fascinating, my purpose in all of this is a little different than adding to the cutting-edge research that’s being done on this phenomenon. 

More than a good laugh, more than something to bide the time with, I people watch on my hardest days to remind myself that I am not the only person in the world. I do it to remind myself that, in the grand scheme of things, whatever emotions are plaguing me that day are wildly insignificant; there are billions of people in the world, and I can guarantee that someone, somewhere is having a way worse (and inversely, a much better) day than I am. It’s a morbid, but comforting thought to me.

There’s something oddly calming about being an observer. We are removed from the action but still tethered to it by an invisible thread of human connectedness. It’s like reminding myself that we’re all just teeny-tiny parts of a much larger, infinitely complex story. Everyone has their own worries, joys, sorrows and quirks. Sitting and people-watching is like watching a movie I’ve seen a thousand times before, but whose plotline I can never quite remember, prompting me to press play again and again. 

Loneliness is something that I’d venture to say no college student is a stranger to. Your 20s can be an isolating time — everyone is trying to figure themselves out while simultaneously balancing a full workload, friendships and relationships. It’s easy to slip into the mindset that all of the hormone and life-induced struggles you face, you’re facing alone.

There are a thousand different ways to distract yourself from this feeling, but sometimes the most obvious answer is truly the best one. Here, my friends, is where people-watching enters. 

What better way to pull yourself out of a fit of anxiety-induced existentialism than to go sit somewhere filled with people and watch your peers hurdle through the same things you are, to remind yourself you’re most certainly not alone?

If you’ve ever sat on the third floor of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library around 11 p.m. on a Monday night, I guarantee you’ve found yourself surrounded by students who are questioning, well, everything.

As I sat in Argus Farm Stop drinking an overpriced matcha latte, I just observed. I left my phone at home, needing to distance myself from the world of social media at this particular moment. Of course, this begs the question of whether we’re better off as a species ridding ourselves of the technology that can play a part in prompting these feelings of isolation and guilt, but that’s a question for another time. 

With one hand in my hair and the other holding my favorite pink pen, perched in the corner of Argus, I watched a young girl, maybe 5 or 6, tug on her mother’s arm and ask for a cookie. I didn’t blame her — Argus has phenomenal baked goods. But her mother told her no. Again and again. As the alligator tears welled up in her tiny eyes, I found myself smiling. This nameless child’s biggest problem was her lack of processed flour and sugar. 

Suddenly, the midterm I hadn’t studied for on Wednesday, or the fight I’d gotten into with my friend earlier in the week didn’t matter so much. 

At some point during my expedition, I stopped taking notes, content to just sit and watch. I don’t mean to say that I sit in the corner of every coffee shop I frequent, taking notes on those around me and storing them for a rainy day. That would be creepy.

What I mean is that even when I’m not directly interacting with those around me, observing people’s lives in unyielding motion lets me slip outside of my own story, even if just for a second. That little girl didn’t get a cookie that day, but I’m certain that she will eventually. It’s blasphemy to deny a child a cookie, anyway. 

She’ll probably grow up to be an actor, or a poet or a lawyer — actually,I have no idea. But her life, even if just for that fleeting moment, was curiously intertwined with my own. In fact, everyone in Argus that Sunday morning had stories and lives that would forever be crossed with mine. 

Everyone, everywhere, is living a life so similar, yet so different from our own, and as a strategically selfish species, I think we tend to forget that our experiences aren’t always as unique and all-consuming as we believe them to be. 

This phenomenon, often referred to as existential isolation, is thought to be the feeling that you, and you alone, are able to comprehend your subjective experiences. When we surround ourselves with people from many different walks of life (like in the environment of a college campus), and truly similar shared experiences become rare, it can be hard not to fall into a pattern of thinking that no one could possibly understand what you’re going through.

It’s almost like, as we traipse through our 20s, we hit a second insufferable-teenager phase, except this time our frontal lobes are essentially developed, and we have responsibilities.

While extensive studies on existential isolation remain primarily theoretical, and empirical research is only just now taking the stage, I believe that we’ve all, at times, felt like we were the only person on the planet who could understand the experience of a certain emotion or event. Obviously, with my unending wisdom as a 19-year-old college student, I’ll speak for myself when I say that if scientists find a deeper-rooted cause for this, I’d be ecstatic to stop wallowing in my preteen-esque misery. 

The reality is that while we all certainly have experiences and emotions that are unique to us, we’re all figuring it out. There’s no need to feel like you’re alone in a crowd, and I believe there’s value in appreciating the fact that the person sitting next to you on the bus also favors the color blue, or something else you might easily have in common with a stranger.

The woman checking her watch in line might be late for a career-altering presentation. The man in the corner with his laptop open could be writing the next great American novel. Likely, we’ll never know what the strangers around us are really up to, but we can guess. We can silently relate to them or ogle at our differences; the moment is insignificant anyway. 

And therein lies the beauty of people-watching. It’s an exercise in empathy as much as it is in imagination. We project stories onto those around us, and in doing so, we acknowledge that they have lives and stories worth telling. Perhaps that’s also part of the reason I love people-watching so much. Perhaps I’m reminded that while I not-so-sneakily observe those around me, they’re observing me right back, and for a beautiful, ephemeral moment, we can sit in recognition of each other. Whatever silent words will be exchanged will sit with me as a reminder that nothing is ever that serious. 

In fact, the art of observing is a technique often prescribed in therapy sessions to help soothe anxiety. Named the “5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method,” the method takes you through a series of exercises that walk you through your surroundings, easing your mind from anxiety and recentering you in reality. 

For this specific method, you count back from five while recognizing things in your immediate environment. You name five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste. Through this little exercise, you can manually regulate your nervous system, all while taking in what’s around you. 

While it might seem foolish to remind yourself that you can see, hear and taste things, our silly nervous systems can become dysregulated. I think it’s kind of amazing that reminding ourselves that we exist and tricking our brains into remembering that we aren’t in danger (and thus deactivating our fight-or-flight mode) can be done in social settings. We’re all human. We all get nervous, and intentionally giving our brains the extra nudge to remember that we really are okay, and that we’re not alone, is simply a testament to the sweetness of shared humanity. 

It’s easy to forget that we’re not the only ones who have relationship problems, deadlines to make and mundane chores to do amid the hustle and bustle of college life, and life in general. Sometimes, it’s necessary to escape from that inward spiral; for me, people-watching is the way to do it. It wraps its warm arms around me and invites me to look up, to look around and to forget about my own existential dilemmas and enjoy the beauty of humanity. I’m almost certain I wasn’t the only one in Argus that day who forgot to eat breakfast that morning or who turned in an assignment a little past the due date this semester.

The girl with the perfect blowout, the potential American novelist and the cookie-less child all have stories I’ll likely never hear, but in the simple act of observing them on that Sunday morning, I got to witness and be a part of their story, even if just for a moment or two. It made me feel better than I did when I had arrived, and to them I will be forever grateful.

No matter how disconnected we all feel, we’re really all in this together (not to quote High School Musical, but it’s true). We’re all grappling with different versions of the same uncertainties, hopes and dreams. So, the next time I find myself with time to spare or get lost in my own head, I’ll probably return to Argus, pen in hand, not just writing stories about strangers, but finding comfort in the fact that they’re writing their own, too. And when the weight of my own life feels too heavy to carry, I’ll remind myself of moments like these. Maybe I’m not the only one who’s struggling today. Maybe none of us are.

Statement Correspondent Anna McLean can be reached at agmclean@umich.edu. 

Related articles