All the weird people on holiday

And why I love watching them

Hello, and thank you for reading The Honesty Box.

Last weekend I went to an excellent writing workshop run by former Cosmopolitan editor Farrah Storr, who now runs Substack in the UK (Substack is the platform I use to publish this newsletter). Anyway, I’m using a new format for my homepage, which I think is more fun and interesting, and I’m going to try out some of Substack’s new features like voice notes soon too, so watch out for those in your inbox.

On with today’s topic: Other People On Holiday and why they are so fascinating.

People are bloody weird, and when you’re all thrown together in a hotel or on a beach for a few days, the quirks of a stranger are unavoidable.

I’m sure you can remember different characters from holidays past. I’ll never forget the couple who befriended my mum and I at a small Spanish guesthouse and wouldn’t stop talking about their new kitchen (we hid from them after that), or the woman who screamed ‘I can’t believe I have to drive all the way to fucking Pisa!’ in front of multiple children as I lay by a pool in Italy as a teenager.

A few weeks ago, I went on holiday to Ibiza and spent a couple of lovely days with a friend pottering from the hotel’s buffet breakfast to a sun lounger on the sand, into the sea, back to the beach and then to the pool.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t been on this kind of trip for a while, but I found myself getting very curious about various characters. Hotels are great for this, especially slightly swanky ones in places like Ibiza (I was lucky enough to be reviewing it so got a good deal).

We’re ultimately watching ourselves, while feigning interest in others

On holiday, people swan around in an environment where they’re both relatively anonymous and quite exposed, given most people are in swimwear.

Being around strangers who know nothing of your failed attempt at getting a flat stomach before your trip is liberating, and you’ll probably never see any of them again anyway, so perhaps this encourages people to let it all hang out.

On the other hand, glamorous trips can provide an opportunity for dressing up and adopting a bit of a persona, and the further the location is in character from your own home, the more different you become, perhaps.

Anyway, on and around this Ibiza beach I noticed several characters. There was the large man who sat on the edge of his sunbed at the end of the row in the same position from early morning, occasionally chatting to his wife or ordering lunch.

Then there were the two South African couples where the men mainly stood around under their parasols talking about life and business, while their wives – with bleached hair, colourful kaftans and gold jewellery – lay on sunbeds next to them.

There were the two middle-aged guys who squirted sunscreen across their chests, with some of the spray settling on their dark hair but most of it disappearing into the air.

And on the hotel’s terrace, there was the American woman with a loud voice demanding staff set her up with a table in the sunshine before getting too hot and ordering her cutlery be moved into the shade.

Most curiously, there was a youngish, very good-looking couple who appeared at breakfast one day, who I quietly earwigged while sipping coffee at the table next to them. She asked him if he travelled much for work (yes, Palma the next day, Lisbon after that) and he asked her whether she had brothers and sisters.

The hot young couple might do better at finding a mate than me so I would do well to fear them

She was long-limbed and delicate, apart from her lips and boobs, while he sounded Australian and looked Asian, with waves of dark hair. Later, they stood waist-deep in the sea gesticulating to each other for a long time, and then they were gone.

I wondered about all of these people, people who happened to book the exact same hotel as me, at the precise time I was going, and people I am unlikely to ever see again.

I wanted to ask the large man why he didn’t move much, and whether he was concerned about his size. I wanted to ask the South African men why they stood around talking business under a parasol in Ibiza when they could do that at home.

I wanted to tell the suncream guys that their sun lotion sprays weren’t very effective and ask the American woman with the cutlery if she was enjoying herself. And I really wanted to ask the hot couple how they met and how long they’d known each other.

Why do we love to people watch? I have a theory. I think it’s because we’re ultimately watching ourselves, while feigning interest in others. I reckon it goes back to times when everyone else, apart from our close family or tribe, was a threat to us and one wrong move with a stranger could mean death – and so we were always on the lookout, constantly assessing who was safe and who wasn’t.

We’re are actually comparing ourselves to them too: the large man on the sunlounger might not have been a threat to me because he wasn’t able to move very fast, but the men talking business could have been - they might be more successful than me because they worked while on holiday.

The hot young couple might do better at finding a mate than me so I would do well to fear them, but the suncream guys weren’t a worry because their protection wasn’t effective.

Also, I wonder what was really going on for those people, their hopes and fears and how that affects their behaviour. The loud cutlery woman might have needed to feel in control of her life to feel safe, which manifested itself as demanding others do her bidding, while the young couple stood apart from each other in sea because they were pretty much strangers to each other. There’s always another layer, and I want to go deeper. I’m watching you!

Things I like

What does your appearance say about you?

I was always slightly uncomfortable about Sandy’s transformation from square bear to skin tight goddess in the film Grease, because it felt like she’d switched her personality as well as her outfit. It didn’t feel real to me. But, somewhere deep down, I’m a little envious. If you could change your looks and character and start all over again, would you? This is an interesting take in the Guardian on how Sandy’s outfit became a cultural phenomenon. RIP Olivia Newton-John.

Mother Mother

Annie Macmanus’s book Mother Mother has been on my reading list for a while and I’m now about halfway through. It’s sad and funny and tells the tale of Mary, who lost her own mother as a little girl, and then finds herself unexpectedly having a child herself. Annie, who is a hugely successful DJ, said people expected her to write a memoir, and the book was rejected by 14 publishers before being taken on by a woman who was touched by the story. I love that Annie went against expectations and took the harder route.

Thank you to Alevision and Unsplash for the photo above.