Out of My Way
Want to try an experiment? Next time you’re out walking around take notice of who moves out of your way or if you move out of others way. I saw this on a documentary on short men. It was noted that tall men will have vastly more people move out of their way then short men. I thought that it could be taken farther and applied to everyone. It would seem to me that people that are more alpha in their thinking would just walk straight and expect others to move out of the way for them. While others will willingly move out of the way to avoid confrontation.
I’ve bumped in to a few people over the years. I always apologize because I most likely wasn’t watching where I was going. But then I got thinking, it takes two to bump. Did the other person not see me too? If they did, why did they walk in to me. Where they expecting me to move out of the way for them? I remember bumping in to a guy in the Montreal Metro. I was going one way and he was coming at me. I didn’t move and neither did he. We crashed shoulders and he was very irate at me that I didn’t watch where I was going. But when you think about it, he expected me to move. He had no intention on moving and expected others to move out of his way.
I think that most people will move to try and avoid each other as they walk around, but there are those that will not. Are you a mover or are you pusher. I think it’s a interesting thing to check. Try walking down a street or a hall and don’t move out of the way of others. Don’t try to get in someone’s way, but don’t make an effort to get out of the way either. Did people get out of your way or did some expect you to move?
Play Asia
May 18th, 2012 at 11:48 pm
i actually had to do an impression of the matrix to get out of somebody’s way one time. they came around a corner, and i was right next to a desk so i couldnt move over, but then didnt move over, so i had to bend in half to get around them. very rude.
May 18th, 2012 at 11:49 pm
but *they didnt move over. sorry, fail.
May 19th, 2012 at 4:42 am
I’ll routinely angle myself out of the way of people coming in the opposite direction well before they get close enough to think about having to do it or not themselves.
One of my annoyances though are groups of friends or whatever that take up essentially the entire width of the pavement, leaving you no room to get by unless you take a step off the sidewalk into the gutter or onto the grass – of which I refuse to bow to such treatment. They always step aside at the last moment, however. I seem to strangely encounter this one the most when it’s raining and everyone’s holding umbrellas, meaning I’d have to step off into muddy grass or water flowing down the gutter, which is even more insulting to feel like I’m being pushed off into.
The other lesser annoyance is the whole idea of treating the footpath like the road – always keep to the left. Or right, if you live in the US, of course. It’d make things so much easier when you have two people trying to get out of the way of the other person, but both end up stepping in the same direction, and mirroring each other several times. At least people are attempting to be courteous in that situation, even if it doesn’t work out…
May 19th, 2012 at 10:27 am
omg i wish people would walk like you’re supposed to drive >.< if you walk on the left(right) ((right for me)) and everyone else does too, then theres nothing to worry about.
May 19th, 2012 at 10:59 am
I agree entirely with maskedmustelid on groups of people–have the courtesy to leave some walkway for others, people! Also, I hate it when a collision is unavoidable or of equal fault, and the other person gets upset. Some people think way too highly of themselves.
Not sure what to say about my moving out others’ way vs. having others move out of my way. I tend to walk efficiently, and plan a path through a crowd that avoids the most obstacles (including other people). So, I guess I move out of the way of others in an indirect way. Though, when I am on a path that I can’t deviate from, I tend to keep mostly to my path and angle my shoulders to make more room for others. I try to give others the space that they need without ceding ground. Figure, if I bump into someone after having done that, they must have given no space to me and it’s their problem (maybe not a great strategy?).
Not sure if this is informing to my behavior, but I am somewhat tall (I don’t consider myself tall, but that’s another issue). I beat the 95th percentile for American white males, but not by much.