Speaking of other people… let’s talk about other people.

Other people are going to be stressors.

There is no getting around that. And while we can’t change what other people do, we can come prepared, both physically and mentally, to encounter the sorts of behaviour we will encounter when we interact with large groups of other people. Because, alas, there are those among us whose concept of volume control is matched only by their adherence to the rules of personal space.

Before we start, I’ll ask one thing of you. Please don’t do these things.

Much of what we talked about in our personal preparation will be useful here.

For example, it hardly matters if it is the Parks themselves or other people who are being loud if we have our ear protection in place to counter it. That said, there are some behaviours that we will encounter that are going to stress us out. So, let’s talk about them. I’ve separated them out into two broad categories: Unintentional behaviour and intentional behaviour.

We all, of course, do things that annoy other people.

Mostly without knowing we are doing them. Hopefully this circle can remind us about the things we all can (accidentally) do to each other when we end up in big, anonymous groups, and also how we can make choices to help those around us. Often, all it takes is for us to take that extra second to consider what effects our actions might have on others. Sometimes we will fail at this. All we can do, when other people do something that is irritating and stressful, is to try to give others the same grace and consideration we would want to receive if we were the ones who had irritated them. Because, at some point, we will be those people.