Eyes focused on a full terrace. Hunting instinct at the ready. With every glass that is almost empty, we hope that the drinker in question will take his coat and stand up. Leggedly towards each empty chair. A feeling of utter happiness when your own buttocks touch the still warm patio chair.
Going to a terrace on the first days of spring is always a bit of a fight. It makes everyone euphoric – unless the people who prefer to replace the word ‘terrace weather’ with ‘lawn mowing weather’, ‘garden cleaning weather’ or, for example, ‘gutter cleaning weather’. Things that are more functional and useful than sitting lazily on a terrace. I can already hear them saying: You can also sit at home, right? And that beer costs a lot less if it comes from your own cellar. Do they know that terraces is a verb? Do nothing, but actually do something. It is one of the most spontaneous forms of being mindful. Living in the moment has rarely been easier. Smartphone in the back pocket, sun on the face and people watching. Hours.
Everyone in the museum
“La rue is a museum for tous!” Hergé is said to have said it once. The street as a museum for everyone. Not that it was always so democratic. In the Nieuwsblad, sociologist Ignace Glorieux looks at the history books. He knows that having a terrace is only something from the mid-nineteenth century: “A terrace was then a means for the urban bourgeoisie to show its prosperity. They could have a drink at their leisure while the common people were toiling.”
Showing you had time was a status issue. While sipping a drink, observe the spectacle of the world passing by. Much has changed, and yet not much has. It is reminiscent of taverns where the first row of terraces still has a reserved sign, such as in the Brussels Queen’s Gallery. “A terrace is still about looking at people unashamedly, and yet also about showing that you are doing well. It is a moment when you can show very ostentatiously, en plein public, that you are not doing anything,” says Glorieux.
Looking unashamedly. That’s it, my dada. Observe and imagine. Watching passing outfits, watching couples that set off a movie in my head, watching enviable families, watching tiredly bickering families that make me glad I don’t have one, watching beautiful people, fantasizing about potential crushes, watching winter toes in summer shoes, looking at hairstyles. And “ten, doesn’t he look years older than me?” “And that, whoa, botox and fillers!” All nice to do solo, observing, but even nicer with two. A game of words and answers. Of evaluation and counter-evaluation. From hypothesis and conclusion. From discussions about the state of the relationship between two lovers. “We bet the two at that one table there are having a Tinder date?” “And those there, at two o’clock, how beautiful they are together!”
Just pure entertainment. However, there is objectively nothing exciting about watching a human zoo stroll by. What do we think about it then? Griet Van Vaerenbergh, social psychologist (Thomas More), has a few ideas. “We are social beings. That’s where it starts. Looking around and observing other people is a first way to connect and give us the feeling that we belong somewhere. That is an important basic need. Social comparison also plays a role there. The passers-by hold a mirror up to you. You subconsciously wonder how you score compared to the people you see. It can give you a sense of self-affirmation, or an impetus to improve yourself.”
Wandering around in other lives
But let’s be honest. It must also have to do with that other thing, with that damned curiosity, wanting to pry into the lives of others, even if only by making wild guesses about how other people live, dress, love or reproduce: “Yes, inevitably ,” says Van Vaerenbergh. “And ultimately we should not be ashamed of that. Curiosity unfairly has a negative image, but if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective, it is a positive thing. Those who were curious always had a higher chance of survival. By knowing more about friend or enemy, you stood stronger in the group. On a spring terrace you don’t need much information to get a first impression of that fellow human being: appearance, behavior – is he reading a scientific book? – or the non-verbal behavior – how does a couple behave towards each other?”
It’s instructive to watch people, she concludes. You learn a lot about yourself and about the world, and not least about other people. “The anthropologist Tom Harrisson became known in the 1930s with his mass observation studies, where, as the word suggests, he did nothing more than observe people in order to draw conclusions about our human behavior.”
Voilà, who said that going to a terrace was just laziness? Everything that is educational should be cherished.
