The Quick Glance "Look Away"

You know how you run across someone you kind of know in a store. They haven’t spotted you yet but you have spotted them. You wonder what you should do. First reaction every time is to turn your head the other direction and pretend like you didn’t see them. Then, if by chance they see you and say something you act surprised. “Hey, how you doing?” Come on! That’s why I always try to say something if I see somebody. Now, my wife always says to me, “Can’t you just say hello and that’s it? Why do you always have to chat forever?” Honestly, I’m trying to get better at that. But here’s the follow up. After you do the right thing and say “Hi”, maybe have a little small talk, you still got some shopping to do, so do they. So up and down the isles you go and you run into them time and time again. What’s the proper thing to do? Talk to them some more? Just leave them alone? You know their just as uncomfortable as you are when they see you again! Maybe the second and third time you see them it is the time to pretend like you didn’t see them. I don’t know. What’s proper etiquette? It’s so confusing. Why didn’t they teach us this in elementary school? I’ll tell you why! Because one day I saw one of my elementary school teachers in a store and you know what I caught her doing? Pretending like she didn’t see me. I caught her eye and she looked away real quick; amazing. I think we need to make Busted stickers when someone turns away and acts like they didn’t see you. When you bust them you walk up and say, “Hey, how you been. I saw you look away real quick once I caught eye contact with you. You weren’t going to pretend like you didn’t see me were you? I’ll bet you were! Here’s a Busted sticker you can walk around with for the rest of the day to show everyone what an idiot you are!” Awe but I jest! I’ve done it, you’ve done it, and we’ve all done it once or twice. Some of you arrogant people out there have done it quite a bit more. I know you’re too good for us common people.

The fact remains that there are some people that we don’t want to talk to. Hey, there are some people we flat out don’t like and don’t want to associate with but we’ll run in to them from time to time. Now I think that if you don’t like each other it is quite alright to do the “look away” and not say anything. But when I see people I know doing it, people I like, and then I just think that’s rude. But wait a minute! I just thought of something. Maybe I like them but they don’t like me. I think I just got a whole new take on this “look away” thing. Wow, I’m going to have to reconsider my whole thought process now. Just when I thought I had it figured out!