Voyeurism

I was at a busy coffee shop this morning at the busiest transit station in the city, sitting in a comfy chair with my caffeine and yet another ethics code (the two things you can most regularly see me accompanied by these days!). I found myself becoming distracted by the people surrounding me... not their conversation per se, but by what I perceived to be their stories.

I am a people-watcher, sometimes to an extreme degree. I take care to identify most of the people in a busy bar, and point out odd details about them to anyone with me. I eavesdrop on conversations. I look in people's windows when I walk by. I make up stories about the other people in the coffee shop, and theorize about their relationships to one another. I have hampered this tendency somewhat via my assimilation into the norms of the big city... as such, I put on my headphones like everyone else, and stare off into the window. However, I still covertly turn off my iPod if something interesting seems to be going on around me.

Once a friend told me that he sometimes thinks in music. I believe that I sometimes think in movies. I take a setting, picture the opening camera angle, background noises, and integrate the people around me into the various scenes. Sometimes I do this in an overly conscious manner, planning exactly what would be the next thing to happen. Other times, I just sit back, and let the film develop, and eventually determine who the chief characters would be.

I suppose this fits well with someone in my field. I remember when I was in my first practicum placement, one of my favourite new priveleges was having access to client files, and being able to read the background stories of the people I met. Apparently other students found this novel at first, but eventually bored of it. Not me. I also devour case studies.

One of the weirder things about this tendency is that I also assume that others are doing the same thing. I then put myself into their heads, and imagine what they must be thinking about me. What stories do they project onto me? How accurate are they? The funny thing about this self-centred indulgence is that they likely do none of this... but I still pretend.