People reading, love it!

One of my favourite pastimes is people watching.  I am content to sit quietly in coffee shops and simply take in my surroundings.  Sometimes I strike up conversations and sometimes I don't.  I like to work out the dynamics between people and covertly observe. I find a certain knowledge of body language helps and this I have gleaned from books and working on the ambulances.  Watching a patient for unspoken signs of distress, discomfort or fear is crucial to a good stretcherside manner so I learnt quickly to identify these.   The part of my teaching work I enjoy the most, is meeting my students, especially groups of diverse personalities who have not met me or each other before.  It is akin to putting a cat (me) among the pigeons (them) . . .   I make it my silent, personal mission to work out as quickly as I can, who will be the class clown, the quiet one, the know-it-all, the disinterested one and the I-will-challenge-you-at-every-opportunity one.  It is part personal skill testing and part self-preservation!  As soon as I know who I have, I can tailor my class accordingly.  No two classes are ever the same, but the personality types are.  People are not usually forthcoming during the first meeting, or even the second, but with subtle questioning I can see beneath their protective shells quite easily.  Most of the time I leave them to be what they want me and others to see, but on occasion I may gently confront someone, particularly the challengers, on discrepancies I have picked up.  Social situations, ones in which I don't have to be Mrs-nice-person, I am a little more interrogative.   Everyone has a persona they wear that they think the world will like. I like to work out how real people are. I use a combination of instinct, good listening skills and basic psychology skills. I either like someone or not. That is my starting point, using instinct. I am rarely wrong on this and I wish more people would listen to their guts. When your gut says "Hmm, not sure, something is not quite right." Listen!    If this is the case, leave it well alone. If not, I may engage in light conversation to see how interested the other person is in me, not in a sexual way, a I want to know about you, way. A disinterested person is often a selfish person, not on my list of possible friends. Other traits I find annoying are interrupters, people who launch into exactly how much they paid for their Ferrari, pet, boots, (pet and boots maybe, Ferrari, probably not) hypochondriacs (being a paramedic, I hear about all manner of ailments) and people who do not pick up on social cues that I am bored stiff with their monologue on child-rearing complete with countless photographs. That said, I find interacting with people very interesting and I learn so much about my self and others by trying to understand why people are as they are. It is not a game for me, it is a quest for enrichment.