Public Stare-downs

If I am bored in a public place, one thing I enjoy doing is staring down unsuspecting people.  The amount of people in the vicinity has to be fairly large, or else it becomes too creepy and the person might confront you.  The best targets are usually middle-aged white men, especially insecure ones.

One time while sitting in an airport, a woman sat down directly across from me.  I was currently bored with the book I was reading, and decided to stare directly at her and see if she would notice.  She looked up from her phone once, and awkwardly adjusted her place in her seat, then pretended to be preoccupied with her text messages.  Feeling bad for her, I continued reading and minded my own business.

Easily the best success I've had was in a theater lobby, waiting for the doors to open for a performance.  I was sitting on a bench, while a 40-year-old man stood in the decently sized crowd, waiting for his wife to go through the absurdly long line for the women's bathroom.  I looked up once, and noticed that he was looking at me, and he quickly looked in a different direction, trying to cover up for his accidental staring.  In return, I focused intently on him.  I watched him turn around, pretend to check his phone, and look back at me.  Upon realizing my stare, he became uneasy, making awkward, jerky movements.  At one point he attempted to glare back at me, hoping that I would realize my stare and look away, but I persisted.  I won the stare-down like a football player beats a cheerleader in an arm-wrestle.  He became especially nervous until his wife returned; after which he ignored me.

I find it interesting how people create an awkward situation because they care about the opinions of a stranger, someone who they have never met, and probably will never meet.

When I'm in an airport a long ways from home, I figure that the chance of seeing someone I know is very low, so I walk backwards on the moving walkways.  Once I was eating McDonald's french fries while walking backwards on a long moving walkway - the looks I got were hilarious.