People-Passing: A Study in Awkwardness

Today I will tell you all about something I hate.

What I hate is when you're walking down a long stretch of path, or a hallway, or a street, and there is /nobody/ there, and you're all alone, and then, then you see that tiny speck of approaching person in the distance. And you think to yourself: "Oh, shit. Here it comes." This is the point where you start worrying about how to interact with this person. There are a lot of options. You can wave, you can smile, you can speak, or you can not interact at all. If you're really awkward you can just make eye contact and then make no gesture at all. So as they approach, you're thinking about all the other awkward people-passing encounters you've had, which is setting you up for awkwardness in this one just by worrying about it, but you can't help it. It's just so awkward. By this point they're far enough away that you can see their eyes, but not close enough to talk to each other. You aren't sure whether or not to make eye contact, so you keep flicking your eyes up and then down. They're usually doing the same, so sometimes you meet eyes, which is terrible because you're too far away to say anything. So you could just quickly look away, or you could nod or wave or smile, but if you nod or wave or smile, then what do you do for the remainder of the time before they reach you in the hallway? Do you maintain eye contact? You can't try talking yet, they're too far away. Has your greeting been completed and now you just walk past them? What if they want to say hello? Does that make you rude?

And the worst part is when you're just about to pass them and you're thinking "phew, almost over," and then they reach up to brush their hair away from their face or something and you think it's a wave, so you fling your hand up into the air and wave, and they look at you like you're a lunatic and almost never wave back, and by that point they've passed you anyway, so you can't even see their face and know whether or not they think you're a lunatic.

And then they tell all their family and friends about this awkward girl they walked past on campus today, and give a physical description, and put out fliers, and no one talks to you ever again.

Don't you hate that?