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If you've ever sat in a public place and simply observed the people around you, you might know it can be quite entertaining. But did you know that people-watching also has some great mental health benefits and can help to sharpen your emotional intelligence?
Whether you're at an airport, a mall, in a coffee shop, at work, or chilling on a park bench, watching others go about their business is an opportunity to disconnect from the fast-paced, digital world we live in, be present in the moment, relieve stress and learn a few valuable lessons.
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#3

Out of a service door comes a man in a pretty bad looking chicken costume being led by a girl in tie dye and dread locks. Sensing epic misfortune about to unfold, I grab my husband and we follow them back to the food court. Sure enough, the chicken throws a water balloon or something filled with red liquid resembling (might have actually been) blood at Mary Lou Retton and her crew as they are frying up delicious Tyson chicken in front of a crowd of soccer moms and their kids. The girl shouts something about Tyson being serial murderers and in an instant the chicken is underneath a large security guard.
As they are leading the chicken away, his girlfriend is shouting "Don't hurt him! Stop choking the chicken!".
According to Eila Mikkonen, a Wellbeing Specialist and owner and founder of Balanced N Powerful, some of people-watching can teach you to appreciate the uniqueness in others, help get your mind off your own problems, relieve stress and calm down, be more mindful and present in the given moment, allow your mind to wander and your imagination to run wild, inspire you to take action in your own life, and find some version of yourselves in others.
Mikkonen suggests picking a spot that's not deserted, then being attentive and actively observing people. "Perhaps focus on an individual. Or you might want to look at families or small groups," says the expert. "Pay attention to things like body language, gestures and facial expressions. What are people wearing? Do they seem talkative? Can you figure out their mood? Are they happy or sad?"
#4
To set the stage a little, people from all over Europe and the rest of the world go to Pamplona for this thing. There are literally a c**p ton of people everywhere you go, often sleeping in doorways, parks, sidewalks and wherever they can find a spot. We were lucky enough to find space at an apt where we could crash for cheap, so no sleeping in the park for us. During the festival, the actual run with the bulls is at something crazy like 8:00 in the morning, which seems ridiculous due to all the partying, crazy people, but the thing is, most are still up, they aren't waking up early. You sleep after the run.
Also, parades. Lots of parades. As we did not speak fluent Spanish and did not know the awesome songs people sang in parades, we spent a decent amount of time watching them and walking in them, and we soon arrived at a startling conclusion. You only needed 3 basic things to start a parade. 1) Some sort of banner or flag. 2) Some type of musical instrument, like a drum, triangle, tambourine, whatever. 3) Drunk people. Lots and lots of drunk people.
The good news was, drunk people were plentiful, I had a hand carved drum I got from a guy in Nigeria, and on the second day, we found this big banner type thing leaning against a dumpster, in perfect condition. We set about trying to start our own parade, complete with me on a drum, my two friends holding each end of the banner, and we set out to rope in drunk people. I should remind you, we had no idea what the banner said. We may have been marching to cure childhood diabetes, or letting everyone know we were vegetarians and thought they should hug bulls instead of run them. No idea.
We find a open square area that seems to have a high concentration of drunk folks, we unfurl the mystery banner, and I start playing my little drum as we walk through the crowd. In no less than three minutes, there are approximately 40-50 people crowded behind us who have erupted into some song that we did not under stand. We kept on walking as they belted out their tune, picking up more and more people along the way, and by the time the song was done, we had at least 150 people in our mystery parade.
Everyone cheered and hollered, handed us a bunch of free bottles of Sangria, and then dispersed back to whence they came. To this day I have no idea what our parade was about, what the drunk people in the parade were singing about, or why some people gave us free Sangria, but I do know that it was really, really awesome.
**tl;dr: I started a mystery parade in Spain.**.
#5

We're near the end of the street, watching more and more people latch onto the group out of sheer curiosity as it moves en masse towards us, and I said, "Let's go." So we tacked on to the side of the train and followed it for ten minutes or so into the heart of the mall, where there's a small park with a sculpture garden and a fountain. By that point there were way too many people to come close to fitting in the park. I would estimate at least a thousand packed together.
The guy who was leading the parade approached this young woman who was sitting on one of the benches there, who was looking pretty bewildered at being surrounded by hundreds of strangers. Another young guy who was with him, sort of a ringleader type, turned to face "us" as a group and started to shout-sing "Lean On Me." With no idea what was going on, the rest of the group joined in until there were enough people to fill an auditorium all singing Lean On Me together to this complete stranger of a girl in the park. We got about a minute in (to the end of the second chorus) before the guy's friend shushed us by raising both hands, and everyone went dead silent.
Then the guy who was leading the parade got on one knee and proposed to the girl. She said yes. Everyone cheered and dispersed, more or less.
It's one of my favorite memories, just because of the sense of being part of something greater, for no reason except that we were all human. With no idea where we were going or why, we still joined the parade of people and sang to this guy's wife-to-be, because it was a good thing to do.
**TL;DR: I join a man's spontaneous flash mob to help terrify the woman he loves.**.
Mikonnen adds that you should pay close attention to what bothers you about other people. "Could this be a quality you don’t like in yourself? Often, the things we dislike in others are actually the things we dislike in ourselves. Everyone and everything around you is a mirror," she explains.
She also said it's interesting to observe how people around you behave in certain situations. "For example, when they see a homeless person? Do they acknowledge the person in some way? Or do they avoid eye contact and walk a little faster?"
Write things down, suggests the expert, and reflect on your observations later.
#6

I nod, politely like "yeah, that happens to all of us." I am rescued by the good looking business man sitting next to me. He is there with his sister. Trying to make small talk, I ask him if he's there on his lunch break, as he appears to have just come from work. "No," he says "I haven't been able to work for a year. They say I have problems, but they're wrong. They mad me go to a place for a while, but they're just trying to steal my ideas." Huh... "I write sometimes, but I know someone wants to steal what I write, so I burn it all. You HAVE to burn it all."
The conversation continues like this for 10 minutes until schizophrenic business man stands up, looks around suspiciously, mumbles something, and walks away. Suit Man looks at me like "Can you believe these people?!?!
So ladies- think twice before you go to legally change your name.
#7

Next a pickup truck comes barreling after it. The deer runs onto the campus lawns and the truck jumps the curb and follows it through the yards. I run after, gotta see what this is about, and by the time I get to where the truck had eventually stopped the deer was nowhere in sight.
4 guys were standing outside the truck yelling at each other. I sort of duck behind this bush area and run into a guy who was ducking there, doing the same thing as me. We kinda looked at each other, shrugged, and kept watching. These guys look university age, yelling about guns, fighting.
The guy in the bushes with me starts to make moves to get closer to the action, and the 4 guys see him. They start to walk over, I'm terrified, and they see me. They are marching over, confident, like they are going to end me, and one guy (HUGE black guy) comes right up to me and picks me up. In a hug. And sort of just sways left to right with me in his arms saying "We were just kidding. We were just kidding." He set me back down and the 4 of them walk calmly back to their truck, and drive away.
I really have no explanation for any of it.
**TL;DR: Deer, truck follows it through campus, confronted by huge black man, comforted by huge black man.**.
Former FBI special agent Kathy Stearman says watching people helped her excel in her career. As a child, she would observe her mother and siblings "orbit" around her father. "One little word or movement from him would make everybody sort of scatter," she writes.
Stearman learned that you can pick up a lot about someone without them even saying a word. You can tell if they're happy, sad, or angry. "I knew my mom was angry, for example, when she mashed her lips together and her mouth became this little slit," reveals the expert.
#8

This man was doing this task solo though. Also not unheard of, but it just requires even more caution with braking. Brake slightly so the car behind you contacts the bumper, and then slowly apply the brakes even more.
I'm not sure how long the man had been doing this for, but he was going about 45 mph, so he must have been pretty confident in his abilities. However, when the deer leaped out into the road, his reflexes took over and he slammed on the brakes, leaving the second car to slam into his first car. He was fine and missed the deer, but both cars were totaled.
**tl;dr: Man rear-ends himself with his other car**.
#9

Anyways I went to the "projects". I turned a corner and the next thing I know this skinny black chick falls out of the window with no cloths on. Shortly after that a BIG black lady comes out with a toaster and throws it at the naked lady running away. A skinny white naked dude comes flying out of the house as well. The big black lady turns around and kicks the white dude in the nuts. Everyone went back inside. The lady I needed to see was directly above them. Laughing she says, "That happens ALL THE TIME.".
When she grew up, Stearman loved to sit in an airport and watch the other passengers. "I could do it for hours," she says. "Whenever I had a long layover, I’d think, 'Aw, I get to people-watch!' You can learn so much about people if you just observe," the former FBI special agent and author wrote.
According to Stearman, something as simple as a pair of shoes or an item of clothing can give clues to what country someone is from.
#10

Not thirty seconds later, I cross paths with a girl wearing typical scene/punkish clothing, fishnet stockings, plaid skirt, dark painted nails, etc. But she was also wearing a welder's mask with the visor down. Okay, things are a little odd now.
Then, not fifteen seconds later, some dude comes tearing a*s in my direction on a bicycle. Dude had some place to be. Except he's riding no handlebars, because he has a plate of sushi in one hand, and chopsticks in the other. He seemed to be quite in control of the situation, though, munching away while riding.
Any one of those in isolation wouldn't have been much to remember, even two on one trip wouldn't have been *that* crazy, but all three in such a short period of time has always stuck with me.
#11
He drives off the road, down the ditch and up the embankment in the other side. Then it got better.
He made it to the top of the embankment and then turned back down. Drove back through the ditch, back up the shoulder and burst through a snowbank back onto the road. He cut back across all 3 lanes of traffic and *into the spot he left from*.
When we passed by the car his wife was bawling in the passenger's seat while he was laughing hysterically.
Stearman's love for people-watching came in handy during investigations. She says she would ask suspects questions that she already knew the answer to, without them realizing it.
"Then I could identify what they did when they told the truth and what they did when they lied," she reveals. "Some people moved a lot when telling a lie—they moved their body in the chair or their hand motions became more frequent. Others became very still, almost immobile, and looked me straight in the eye, as if trying to convince me they were sincere."
#12

But they did the funniest thing one day.
One day while they're gone, a man in a truck comes up with a hay bale. He walks into their driveway a bit, got a disgusted look on his face, and then set the hay bale in the drive way.
A few hours later, our deaf neighbors come home, and they see the hay bale. They all look at each other really confused, and then all at once, they look down the road. Then, all at once, they all look up the road.
Then, all at once, they all look straight up into the sky.
#13
True story.
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#18

I was shopping for shoes with my mom in JCPenny's when I was about 14. I was trying a pair on when some random kid walks up to me and starts beating me with Elmo slippers. Then he walks away like nothing happens.
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