I saw my nextdoor neighbours cousin, Tom, once, he was just in front of me, and i walked really fast to catch him up

Then he turned round, and he said

I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE!!

I do this quite a lot. Speshly on the way to work. Which is particularly stoopid, given that I’ll see the colleague in question later anyway.

I’ve sometimes done that, walking very fast and thinking “oh, it’s Auntie Lynn”, and catching up and realising it’s not Auntie Lynn at all but someone I’ve never met before. Does this happen to anyone else?

Nah

I tend to do this. It annoys my father immensely. Which is funny cause as a kid I always had to catch up with him when we walked somewhere.

Uh, no. I have total social anxiety when I see someone on the street, and I never know if I should say hello to them or pretend I haven’t seen them in case they hate me or something and they’re just pretending not to have seen me.

I do this quite a lot. Speshly on the way to work. Which is particularly stoopid, given that I’ll see the colleague in question later anyway.

I slow down so that I don’t catch up on colleagues and need to switch off my stereo and make with banal conversation about it soon being Friday.

You don’t like a banal conversation?

I get all the banal conversations I need once I actually get to work. It’s not the banality, it’s the certainty that you’re going to say the same things you said last time you bumped into them on the way to the office.

i thought this was a markH thread

Aren’t they all?

no, you can never walk too fast, most people walk far far far FAR too slowly. if you can’t catch up with someone, phone them!

what if they’re only ONE step ahead?

British people walk so fast. I am a fat American, but still. So fast.

i know what you mean tiki, but in reality it’s more that americans in england walk very slowly. einstein taught us that.

we seem faster because of the time difference

I am more likely to dawdle if somebody I know is ahead of me, unless it’s somebody I like particularly.

Uh, no. I have total social anxiety when I see someone on the street, and I never know if I should say hello to them or pretend I haven’t seen them in case they hate me or something and they’re just pretending not to have seen me.

Yep, me too.

I slow down so that I don’t catch up on colleagues and need to switch off my stereo and make with banal conversation about it soon being Friday.

This one as well. I remember back in the magic days when I worked in an office, I used to dread ending up on the same bus as one of my colleagues, particularly in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked with nice people who generally like to chat about stuff that’s fairly interesting to me, but I hate having a job so much that I think of any time not spent at my desk actually working as MY time and I will not share it with people from work.

What about when you’re walking behind someone on a relatively isolated stretch of sidewalk where it’s basically just you and them, and they’re maybe 20 feet ahead of you, and your pace is just slightly a bit more than theirs, at this awkward dynamic where in about a minute you’re going to have caught up to them but then be forced to more or less remain side by side with them for a good chunk of time, and you know it’s gonna weird them out because they’ll first see this shadow looming from behind them that slowly catches up (and/or they’ll have plenty of time to hear someone slowly approaching) and it’s like you’re now very obviously their new little neighbor for this stretch of the walk, but it’s also this completely ephemeral coupling so the relationship has that elevator vibe which means it’s too informal a situation to say hi because what kind of creep is going to turn to someone in this situation and say “HI OTHER PERSON!!!” yet you totally feel like you ought to.

I usually just switch to the other side of the street now to avoid the whole thing. NOT gonna slow down.

Yeah, wtf, just cross the road.

But doesn’t that just indicate that something vital to a friendly, cooperative society is clearly fucked up? Wouldn’t I just be sealing the deal by bothering to cross the street? Isn’t that letting the neuroses win?

it’s not THAT awkward. why would you need to cross the road?

So I don’t ease into someone’s bubble, thereby causing them to deal with someone who has eased into their bubble.

Also, I’m not talking about NYC sidewalks here. I’m talking to small to mid-sized town sidewalks, maybe a 4’ width max.

Depends where you are! If it’s in central or suburban London, no way am I talking to the stranger, but neither would I cross the road.

If I am Walking in the Country, then I will say hello and nod encouragingly to everyone else on the trail. (so long as they are not utter arsewipes.)

I don’t know why this is. Maybe I am more relaxed in the country. Maybe I think that anyone who is Walking for Fun is more likely to be friendly.

LOL. I’m not arguing about this. Bye.

’stop and chat’

I love that ILX can turn a thread started purely out of snark into 1000 posts about walking pace.

you people need cars

If I am Walking in the Country, then I will say hello and nod encouragingly to everyone else on the trail. (so long as they are not utter arsewipes.)

I don’t know why this is. Maybe I am more relaxed in the country. Maybe I think that anyone who is Walking for Fun is more likely to be friendly.

I’ve always pondered this, i remember starting a thread on ilx some years ago, I think i put it down to the feeling of being on alien territory. Seeing other humans was like similarly bumping into someone you knew if you were away on holiday.

I love that ILX can turn a thread started purely out of snark into 1000 posts about walking pace.

Me too. Ditto the book thread.

clearly i’m not in on the joke, and should be ridiculed immediately.

a thread started purely out of snark

rofl, i didn’t know it was

The joke is that Mark H started a bunch of noodly threads about stuff he was idly reminisching about, and others decided to get in on the act to make fun of him, and presumably of those of us who joined in. But we have joined in here too, and so are probably ridiculous also.

o my sides

I don’t care if it’s ridiculous. I’m bored at work, and these threads are entertaining.

Besides, it IS odd that you will say hello to complete strangers in the country, but not in the city. Why is that?

because if you said hello to everyone you passed in the city you would never get to where you were going.

dammit, the reason (well, one of the reasons) i love the city is i can walk down any street, even the one i live on, and not see one person i recognise who recognises me. i hated that about growing up in a village, HATED IT HATED IT HATED IT. everyone knew who you were, who your friends were, who your mum and dad were, what had happened in your street last week, and as a result thought that gave them the right to stop you and interrogate you about it. FUCK OFF. JUST. FUCK. OFF.

o my sides

I can get you a needle for them, and the thread’s right here!

(That’s my Dad joke.)

Because there are like 12 million people (I think?) in the city, the likelihood of knowing any of them or running into them again recognizably is quite small (apart from weird coincidences!), and their sheer numbers are sensorily overwhelming.

In the country a passer-by is probably someone you know, or that someone you know knows, or who will be at the cafe or post office or etc the next time you go through, and so social accountability is much greater. Also I think there must simply be some human element to recognize each other as part of the human community when your backdrop and surroundings are all Nature, Red in Tooth and Cliff-face, but that whole “shared humanity” thing has probably been codified over time, by practice, into a sort of bluff “hello” in passing.

There! I love a little baseless speculation in the morning.

I remember going down to Clare one time and a guy went past in his car and waved at us. My first thought was “is he taking the piss because we’re from Dublin?” but then I realised he just waved at people.

It’s great moving to a small village as an adult, though, because you can tell people as much or as little about yourself as you like. And if everyone else there has moved from the city as well, they won’t give a shit anyway.

so how often do you city folk bump into your friends on the city streets?

I get pedestrian rage if a gaggle of people ahead of me are just ambling along a city street, I’m like “hurry up, move, fuck off, die!”. Cos in the city I’m wanting to get from a->b asap and resent anything that brakes my momentum.

If I was in the country I’d just be like “ahh, going for a nice stroll tum-te-tum, no rush”.

so how often do you city folk bump into your friends on the city streets?

It depends where I am. If I am in the ILX Nexus of Holborn, quite frequently. Ditto if I’m around the intersection of Graham Road and the main bit of Hackney, just because I know so many people who live around there.

Is this Gareth starting all these parody threads?

so how often do you city folk bump into your friends on the city streets?

I often do, but then I lived in Dublin, went to college there, worked there, and so on and so on, so I’ve built up several groups of people to avoid in one small city.

LOL Trish. So very true!

i run into people on the city streets quite often, though less so in winter. hell, even as a visitor to big cities i run into people, even ilxors! e.g., jw on the streets of nyc! and once marianna on the streets of london!

i walked fast this morning to catch up to my friend who was meeting me at the gym—it’s weird b/c our paths have never crossed before even though we’ve had this routine for months—which also is amazing b/c it’s always a matter of just a minute or two whether you’ll run into someone or not. the world. pretty awesome.

ammit, the reason (well, one of the reasons) i love the city is i can walk down any street, even the one i live on, and not see one person i recognise who recognises me. i hated that about growing up in a village, HATED IT HATED IT HATED IT. everyone knew who you were, who your friends were, who your mum and dad were, what had happened in your street last week, and as a result thought that gave them the right to stop you and interrogate you about it. FUCK OFF. JUST. FUCK. OFF.

EMSK RIGHTEOUSLY OTM

Hahah. Small towns are exactly the same in the US but no one walks anywhere, so they most they can do is wave at you from the car, or maybe ask “How ya doin’?” out the window in passing. SAVED.

Wandering into town at random on a Saturday and knowing I’ll run into someone I know is one of the things I miss SO BADLY about Dublin.

But then I suppose you choose where you live in a city, much less in a village.

Whatever like.

I thought this thread was started by Mark H, but he had anonymoused himself because he was embarrassed about starting yet another thread. But I do like Mark H threads!

I ran really fast for a bus, but it was the wrong one!

Wandering into town at random on a Saturday and knowing I’ll run into someone I know is one of the things I miss SO BADLY about Dublin.

this happens to me in london!!!

I run into people all th etime. I don’t know who they are though.

SLOWER TRAFFIC TO THE RIGHT!

The worst thing is a gang of were-three-toed-sloths in human form walking eight abreast at a rate of approximately 2 klicks per decade blocking the whole sidewalk.

i dunno, i think i would enjoy running into 8 breasts whilst walking through a street full of people.