(Image Source: Stuart McClymont on Getty Images)
I was recently at the airport, inching forward in the security queue, when a man briskly walked past the entire line and slotted himself a few people ahead. No eye contact, no apology - the prince had just taken what he believed was his birthright.
Now, I am not one to swear. Yes, yours truly is mannered, and (more importantly) not a fan of confrontations. So, I did what any civilized person should do - I administered a high dosage of sweet nothings under my breath.
For the next fifteen minutes, I stood there with a scowl on my face, fuming at the sheer unfairness of it all. Here we were, dozens of us, following the rules, inching forward with quiet patience, and this one man decided the rules didn’t apply to him. It wasn’t just mildly irritating. It felt… well, offensive.
Eventually, a glass of water and a donut helped me return to equilibrium. But the thought lingered: Why did this small act provoke such a strong reaction in me?
And that’s when I started thinking about one of the strangest things we do as humans: stand in lines.
No, really. Think about it.
We do it at airports, in front of ATMs, at buffets, passport offices, polling booths. We do it mostly without protest, sometimes with mild irritation. But we do it. We wait our turn.
Which is weird, if you give it a second thought.
Because nothing in our evolutionary history prepared us for this. Our ancestors didn’t queue up at waterholes or patiently wait their turn to hunt. Even today, in most parts of the animal kingdom, it’s the strongest or the most aggressive that gets first access to resources.
And yet here we are, in the modern world, voluntarily forming orderly lines to buy coffee.
Where did this behavior come from?
The idea of queuing as a social norm is surprisingly recent. Historians trace its origins to 18th and 19th century Europe, when urbanization, industrialization, and wartime rationing forced large numbers of people into shared public systems. As cities grew more crowded, and resources scarcer, the line became a way to impose order. Especially in Britain, the queue (from the French word for 'tail') became a marker of civility, fairness, and self-restraint.
During World War II, queuing took on a moral dimension. British propaganda posters praised the virtues of patiently waiting in line for rations. To jump the queue wasn’t just impolite, it was unpatriotic.
Interestingly, early mentions of the line also appear in literature as a symbol of a changing society. In 1837, Thomas Carlyle wrote about “the queue spirit” as a peculiarly modern phenomenon i.e. a quiet discipline where people accept waiting as part of public life. It was both admired and critiqued. In many ways, the line represented the rise of a new kind of order: not one imposed by monarchs or gods, but by mutual agreement. It was democracy, played out on the pavement.
Over time, this idea spread. In many parts of the world today, the line is not just a method of organizing people, but a symbol of fairness. First come, first served. Everyone gets a turn. No one gets special treatment.
But it’s all fiction. A social construct. There is no natural law that says we must stand in single file. The line only works because we all agree to believe in it.
And that agreement is fragile.
Anyone who’s ever waited in line at an Indian railway station or a government office knows how easily it can break down. One person cuts ahead, others follow, and suddenly the whole thing collapses into chaos. The line works until it doesn’t.
Which is why queues are such a revealing lens into how societies function. In high-trust societies, the line holds even without enforcement. In low-trust ones, you often need barricades, guards, and token systems to enforce it.
But the deeper insight is this: the line is a story we tell ourselves about fairness. It allows us to suspend our natural instincts, suppress privilege or power, and say: I will wait, because everyone else is waiting too.
This is where Rousseau feels oddly relevant. In The Social Contract, he wrote,
“The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty."
The queue is a manifestation of that very idea. It transforms raw impatience into shared fairness, and personal delay into collective order. It replaces force with consent.
That story, of course, doesn’t always hold up. VIP entries, side doors, quota systems, and digital fast-tracks all create ways to skip the line. And yet, when someone cuts ahead, we still feel that visceral flash of injustice. We don’t need to know who they are. We just know they broke the story.
Digital spaces have recreated the queue in new ways. Waitlists for apps. Customer support tickets. Even, Covid vaccine booking portals, and concert ticket sales. Late last year, I had found myself in a virtual queue for Coldplay’s India tour - staring at a screen that told me I was number 83,471 in line. No pushing. No jostling. But the same nervous anticipation, the same flicker of outrage when someone on Twitter claimed they got in instantly.
Virtual or real, the emotions remain.
So here’s a question worth pondering:
In the moments when no one's watching, and the line is easy to break - do you still wait your turn?
Write to us. We’d love to hear your stories of fairness, frustration, or the time you stood in a line that said more about society than you expected. We’ll feature the most compelling ones in a future edition.
Because for all its flaws, the queue remains one of the most powerful, invisible social contracts we have. It asks us to trade impatience for predictability. To believe that order is fairer than chaos. That our turn will come.
And maybe that’s the real magic of the line: it works not because it has to, but because we want it to.
What we’re watching this week
This is why you hate queue jumpers by The Guardian - A fascinating short video that explores the psychology of waiting in line - from British national identity to Krispy Kreme doughnut displays. It looks at why queue-jumping makes us furious, how businesses manipulate wait perception, and why even U2 fans hate when someone cuts in behind them. Turns out, queues aren’t just about order - they’re about fairness, status, and deeply human instincts we don’t always admit to.
Link: https://youtu.be/fhbUFKt7tzA
Until next week,
