Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Perils of Being a People Watcher

People watchers are a rare breed. Their brain never turns off. It is always analyzing other peoples actions, words, and patterns all in an attempt to understand the person they are interacting with and to define people's true feelings. Everyone has the occasional moment where they become aware, really aware, of the other people around them, but these are not people watchers.

People watching never takes a break. It is something that becomes a part of that individual. They are capable of talking to anyone and gaining the trust necessary to get the information desired. While good advice and observations and even good listening and perception skills do come from it there are many draw backs to watching from the sidelines.


People watchers are like the coach of any sports team. They try to make a connection with their players and really try to get to know them. They give advice on the field and in life. They become a go to guy; a dependable personality, but at the end of the day the players have not truly gotten to know the coach.

People watching brings a sense of loneliness with it, a sort of insecurity. By spending so much time trying to figure out everyone else, the people watcher fails to partake in normal activities that he/she is observing. A people watcher will walk out of the room and wonder what is being said about him or her. When observing others, he/she notices the talking that goes on when other people are out of ear shot. Thus it makes one wonder. This only adds to the insecurities.

People watchers have their own insecurities and problems, but they don't let anyone see those. They are more focused on the issues that surround the people that they interact with. This may be a result of masking the insecurities or distracting oneself from them, but whatever the case they have developed these reactions. People watchers, as hard as they may try, can not bring themselves to accept that there are times when hidden agendas do not exist, and that there is a time to just let people watch them.

1 comment:

  1. This blog got me thinking something slightly different than what you are talking about in this entry… What is it like when a group of people hang out and they all happen to be people watchers? Do they watch each other’s actions and hidden thoughts and realize that the people they are around are fellow people watchers? Then does it just get weird? Or does it get boring because there is nothing to watch?

    That is just something I thought about when reading your blog.

    This was an interesting perspective. Good blog

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