People watching - my new hobby!

Me too. Whenever I go into town alone, I always finish in a cafe with a hot drink and definitely people-watch while leisurely sipping it.

I am terrible at clothes shopping, having no great interest in fashion and nowadays very unsure what I should be wearing at my age or how to pair up my separates, so recently I have made a point of watching passers-by, hoping for ideas and inspiration, and I have to say that it has been quite helpful. ☺

Me too.
For the real experience of people watching, (fashionable or otherwise, certainly cosmopolitan), try Searcys on St. Pancras Station. I could sit there people watching all day. It's right by the Lovers Meeting Place statue which gives an added frisson.

And me. Thank you Joseann, somewhere to go on my solitary train trips! 😊

London art galleries are my downfall! I spend almost as much time people-watching as I do looking at the art works!

I foolishly went into town today. The Edinburgh festival is in full swing. The sights I saw!! I simply couldn't imagine how some people thought they looked OK to go out in public! Dearie me. I went home asap and didn't feel too bad at all about how I was dressed (head to toe in M&S's finest)

Aveline snap! Head to toe and all layers M&S too! But I’m a separates person and I would love to be a dress person! There were some fabulous dresses being worn at Next today❤️

My most favourite ever people-watching place was the terrace at the Café de Paris, opposite the casino in Monte Carlo.
The large group of yummy mummies with their designer children and plentiful nannies, the elderly couple dressed in matching shell suits with their face-lifts so tight they looked like they were in a wind tunnel... absolutely fascinating and talk about another world 😎

Me too , my vantage spot is not as exotic as Monte Carlo, but a bench at the local shopping mall. You’ll be surprised !!!

Greetings to a fellow flaneur! (Although I’m not covering the distances I used to in my bid for new sights…)

I have a favourite corner in a coffee shop right up against a mirrored wall so I can watch others without them realising, my book or phone in hand.
I caught a man staring at me though, thinking he couldn’t be seen and that is not the object of the exercise.

It can be preferable to being in company, just observing the world go by.

Great Court at the British
Museum is excellent for people watching. I should add though there is a guy who lives near me who spends loads of time people watching from his first floor flat. Though harmless, it is becoming a little bit creepy.

I just love people watching my favourite place is a table outside Costa Coffee in Liverpool 1 so many lovely ladies in Liverpool all wearing stunning outfits I could sit there all day long, the men turn themselves out well also .

I wish I could agree glammanana - yesterday the men let the side down! Scruffy didn’t really describe it for a few. And why would a grown up dad dress like a seven year old? Did see one or two very well turned out older men but they were the rare ones. Come on men, dress up for your partner!

I love a nice people watch and if my sister is with me we make up all sorts of stories about the people that come and go. Moving house soon back to a town with lots of cafes I intend to spend lots of time there with or without a book and just sit in the window.

Oh yes I do agree people watching is a great hobby. Although I wonder what conclusion the people watching me come to!

Love people watching. Italians have it down to a fine art. And they do nothing to hide it. Been to couple of areas in Italy where you either sit and watch or walk and be watched. Fabulous. 😁

Ive always been a great people watcher and find it far more interesting than staring at a phone! Im not bothered by or judgemental of what others wear - I expect that comes with age. I now dress for comfort and dont give a damn about the opinions of random people.

I dont go out into the city now but I used to spend many happy hours sitting in public places watching people. Last time I did so a street begger began to approach me so I was determined not to be a captive audience. I held up my hand in a barring motion and mouthed NO quite sternly.

People watching at pavement cafes in France and Italy is part of the fun of being alone on holiday. If Id gone with a companion they would probably have got bored.

I used to be a manager of a shop with full windows so you saw everyone but they couldn’t see you and I started to do it then and I’ve done it every since no matter where I go. Ppl do some strange things without realising that they are doing it lol

We went to the theatre this week. We were seated early and I loved watched everyone come in. I admired some who'd dressed up and secretly condemned the man who came in shorts!

Inishowen that would probably be my husband, from about April to October it’s shorts almost whatever the weather, although he did wear trousers when we went out the other evening. The DGC say ‘Grandad’s got his legs out’ 😂

I love people watching too. Some (most) of the sights I see are ghastly! Hope it doesn’t show on my face! 🥱

Every now and then I see a woman in the most gorgeous outfit and have to be cheeky and ask where she bought it from. ☺️

Love people watching. Usually get my husband to park in front of the entrance to a large shopping centre. While he does the shopping I sit in the car and watch. One change I can’t get over is the amount of people of all ages and genders wearing runners. I believe they call them trainers or converse or something. We called them tennis shoes or runners and wouldn’t be seen dead in them going shopping.

Sidelined, perhaps you need to dress up to go people watching !
I love watching folk too and often wonder where they are going to, how lovely some look and occasionally wonder if there is a mirror in their house !

We don't do much people watching in the UK, but, when we go to our favourite village in Turkey, we always take at least one ferry trip to Marmaris, sit in the same cafe each time and just watch the world go by.

Jb2022 and Pippa22, - before covid, when I was people watching in a Waitrose cafe on a regular basis, there was an older woman, very neat and trim, but tottering along on painfully high heeled shoes. I saw her most weeks and she never gave those darned heels up. It seemed to me that this was her one outing every week and she was going to be done up to the nines! She seemed overdressed for the supermarket to me but she was happy, particularly when someone stopped her to compliment her dress - she truly beamed with pleasure!

This week I couldn't help but think how times have changed here in the UK. When I was a kid you had to be clean, tidy, nothing tatty or torn, no beachwear, no sports wear, nothing that showed more skin than was the norm and certainly no showing of underwear however pretty it was. Now anything goes. Men wear shorts (and sometimes flip flops) in the winter, I've seen young women in their dressing gowns and pyjamas in the supermarket (!!!!) and I've seen some huge women (and I'm a 22 so when I say huge I mean huge) wearing tiny tops and shorts. Some of it I think is just plain wrong but I have to say that I also think I wish I had just some of the confidence to wear what I'd like to wear (not shorts, I promise you) that the body-positive women have right now. Good for them. You really do have to be comfortable in your own skin and my feet love my various pairs of trainers, I hope it shows on my face. You really can learn a lot by watching people, can't you.