People Watching - Assignment 2

I went to a restaurant to observe people, one I have only been in one time before. Although I didn’t understand it at the time, just by walking in and taking out a notebook I had already violated rule number one; single Hispanic females eating alone are different. I came in and sat down alone and then moved to a different table when I couldn’t get a good view of all the people in the restaurant. Moving seats after sitting down is another violation of the rules; don't do strange things that look suspicious. Pulling out a notebook and writing in a place where people are supposed to be eating broke rule number three; the appearance of monitoring someone even when in a public place and even when not confirmed, is cause for suspicion. Finally, staring (for periods of more than a second or two) is an invasion of privacy and looks of suspect or irritation will be shot back at you.

With my violation of the rules out of the way, here is what I observed. I noticed that women constantly converse, even while eating. They face each other directly, make almost constant eye contact when speaking, their speech is very animated and they often use hand gestures, they tend to lean forward when talking to each other, and consistently affirm their attention in a conversation with nodding, hmm’ing and ah’ing. They maintain their focus on the conversation they are involved in and didn’t appear to look around and make note of their surroundings or the other people. Their conversation was very animated and their facial expressions varied between smiling and laughing to looks of concern and seriousness.

The younger men I observed conversed far less than the women were not inclined to maintain more than a few seconds of eye contact at any given point, were less animated, and actually just seemed to be more relaxed. It was as if the conversation could happen or not and they weren’t concerned with it. One strange thing I noticed was a group of four men, where only three of the men from the group sat together and the other man sat at a different table. I overheard the one of the three men tell the waitress that the single man was with them. This single man just sat by himself and read a newspaper. Even when the newspaper was finished being read, he just sat there looking around. Never once did he attempt to make any conversation with the men he was supposedly with.

When two older men entered the restaurant, they sat directly across from each other, made more eye contact, and employed sporadic hand gestures when speaking. Their conversation was less fast paced than the women and eye contact was broken frequently but none-the-less still persisted. Perhaps it was because of their age, number, or relationship, but they appeared to be more willing to engage in active communication with each other than the younger men.

I should mention that the restaurant seemed to contain mostly middle-age to elderly men and women, there was no diversity outside of gender, and I was seated in a family style restaurant, not a bar.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I believe I did break some of the rules. The affect of breaking the rules were the looks of suspicion shot my way. I have no doubt if any other radically different behavior was exhibited in the presence of these people, they would either ignore it but show disapproval, curiosity, or they would leave the restaurant. The place I was in was a pretty "keep to yourself" kind of place where I don't think someone would directly speak out or against any behavior they thought was strange or different. Avoidance would most likely be the harshest reaction to deal with anything outside of the normal.
Do you think the communication pattern styles like I listed above are the same between genders regardless of the generation, or are their differences? This question refers specifically to face-to-face communication styles, not Internet, text, etc.