Vanity and People Watching

There is about an hours drive from my home town of Edmonds, an outdoor game preserve stocked with bears, rhinos, buffalo, and all manor of other wild animals. You drive up, pay the small admission fee and then drive around the park watching wild African game walking around in herds, often surrounding your car. You can toss bread their way, sit quietly with the engine off, and just animal-watch or drive through quickly and get an A.D.D. version of all the animals at 45 mph. Either way its fun. I did it last summer and had a great time. Next time you have a sunny weekend open I suggest it as a great alternative to the great sport of people-watching that occupies much of my time.
People-watching is fascinating for all sorts of reasons, and enjoyable to many of you for probably different reasons than why I enjoy it. We all like it, never have I met anyone that said they did not like people watching, which means one very important thing we should all remember. Which is, and it's very much like the person in your office who tells you secrets about other people through hushed conversations, head-nods, winks and whispers. If that person is talking about other people to you, then they are talking about you to other people it goes both ways, never are we only on one side of another's quirks. We all have a person we have to share 'secrets' with, but if that extends to more than one or two close friends, then there is a problem, and realize it does reflect back on you. Back to people watching. We all seem to like it, we all do it so what should we think about it? Who are we looking at, and why? But the biggest question this leads to is who is looking at back, and what does it mean to us?
There are two kinds of people we seem to enjoy looking at, the very unusual and the very attractive. A middle aged, clean, middle income couple walking hand in hand will quickly be forgotten, but the guy walking without a shirt on, wearing one roller-skate, and sporting dreads down to his ankles will be talked about fondly for years. The couple with gold chains attached to both of their nose rings walking tattooed arm in tattooed arm smelling of patchouli oil and Indian reservation smokes imprints a visual image on our brains that will last a lifetime. But they are the extremes. Most of us are looking at people and whether we mean to or not, are judging them. I am no judging you for judging them just saying that I think most of us see all of the people that we consider worse off than ourselves as a mood enhancer. Spend a day down at the Pikes Place market and you will feel positively wealthy for the rest of the day. Good reason why you will find me down there sipping coffee most weekends during the summer. I love it. The vast assortment of people who care less about how they look than I do fascinates me. Peering deeper I suppose those same people are trying to fit in with a different sort than I do, so maybe they do care just as much. I just don't see their "peeps". But main stream fashion, and thoughts on cleanliness don't seem to have the same appeal to them as they do me. To me, seeing people who just don't care, is refreshing. The old man with knee high socks says one of two things about himself, either he is perfectly at ease with life, maybe having spent his whole life with one woman and only her opinion matters, or he is getting ready to pee his pants. Either way I am envious. Just once I want, while I am still coherent, to pee my pants in public, and if possible without any help from illegal drugs, to not care. How incredible it would be to isolate ourselves from what others think to that degree. To be so oblivious of what others think that you could walk down the street with nothing but your own thoughts on your mind. Never worrying a whit about perception. Clearly you would, at this point, be a class-A people watching candidate, but for the roller skate guy does he remember me? Would it have helped him in any way had I thought he looked fantastic instead? Do you think that he would remember fondly my noticing his shoes that night? Probably not, and probably does not remember anything from that day at all, bad example…uhm or the last 6 years? Wasn't the merchandising efforts made by so many, and dollars spent advertising wasted on him? What if they were wasted on all of us? What would the world look like? Sure there would be a lot more armpit hair, but what else? Imagine a world where perceptions were not important at all. If that were the case, what would be important?
I love seeing overweight pale men wearing parkas khaki shorts, Bermuda shirts, sandals and knee high white socks during the winter. If there is any doubt that some people care more about their appearance than others just do a drive by at your local mall, and look around the parking lot. If it's an off day or time and you can't find anyone, then 411 the nearest Wal-Mart and, while keeping your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, begin your safari of people watching. Half shirts on girls whose bellies are hanging over their belts abound, guys wearing camouflage and mullets. It seems, when I look around that maybe I care too much. Maybe I am more vain than I think I am. Maybe all of us, who do take a glance in the mirror before walking out the door to just make sure nothing is hanging out of our noses, to be sure that our clothes match in reality like we thought they did when we put them on are all too vain. What if every woman had a body image so good that she was capable of wearing a too-tight T-shirt, and shorts whose buttons are screaming under the pressure of containing last weeks double happy meal and chocolate milk shake. Could you show to the world your rolls of fat? Besides for those of us who will have to see it, is it really a bad thing?
One of my best friends is a woman I have known for many years. I wonder if what she does before leaving every morning is similar to you. Nothing short of a four-alarm fire at 4:30am would get her out of her house without some basic makeup. Nothing. What if her boyfriend broke his leg and was at emergency? Nope. Not good enough. Makeup, and her perception of how others see her have led to core changes in her behavior. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Even getting dressed up there is nothing wrong with. But what I am finding, and I suppose I can guess what I will look like at 80, is that whether someone I walk past, or drive past notices me, thinks I am cute, or whizzes by without a thought in the world, makes no difference to either my wallet or my stomach. Does not help me sleep at night, or keep me company during the holidays. Its empty, and fleeting. And I can tell the older I get the more I will realize that what 'They' think just does not matter.
You see we all look at others, and sometimes we see people that we think are exceptionally attractive, or well put together, and its not uncommon to want to emulate them in some way. So that when you are the one walking down the crowded café strewn alley, you hope that people will think the same of you. Not uncommon at all. This is how the fashion industry works. There are days when I know you know you look fantastic. A real heartbreaker. Hot! Whatever. There are days when you and your friends will get together and just amaze each other at how hot you all look. That's okay. We see what we like and want to have it, or be it. But it leads to another question. How does this awareness of what others are thinking about us help us, or better yet does it get in the way of you becoming more content in life?
There were quite a few years when you would never find me in anything less than a fairly nice outfit. Metro, I have been accused of being. Fine, I can live with it. I do like music, books, and history, and at the same time like to dress up. And although I really do enjoy getting decked out and going out to a fine restaurant with my girl(my imaginary girl), I find simple peace and inner thoughts easier to come by when I wear flannel and old jeans. The reason I think this is, is because I know I disappear better dressed down. I can 'feel' less people looking, imaginary though it is. I stop feeling judged and feel comfortable peaceful, alone amongst the crowd. Getting others attention, unless it is a specific person, is useless to me, to us. Notice the next time you get a look, a flirt, how far the feeling goes. Does it help you deal with your boyfriend later tonight, help you finish a goal, or make curling up alone on the couch more manageable? A little is always good, and I do not recommend trying to avoid getting flirts, they are fun and healthy, but with your mind distracted by others thoughts will you ever find peace with yourself? Will getting the attention of another change anything tangible in your life at all? If you are single, maybe. But odds are you are just vain like me.