It’s the mother of all awkward encounters: Fear of Spotting Someone You Recognize in Public. You’re sitting on the train, minding your own business, when you just get this urge to look up. Of course, you are looking right into the eyes of a scowling ex girlfriend or into the eyes of an equally scowling kid you used to pick on at Bible camp. Either way, it’s bad. Do you say hi? Do you avert your gaze and pretend like there is something on the ceiling or out the window that NEEDS to be witnessed? So many options to consider, but by the time you finally decide you are going to fake a heart-attack or take the blue pill, your mouth has already taken the liberty of engaging in conversation with the person. Now this could be a simple “Hey, how’s it going?” or it could be a tragic “I haven’t seen you in so long! We should totally catch up!” The only thing worse than a generic greeting is saying anything and receiving their response of “Umm…Who are you?” Because it happens all the time. Not just to me, right?
Recognizing Your Fear of Spotting Someone You Recognize in Public
Let’s assume you decide to make the logical choice to never leave your house again to avoid these awkward encounters. Great idea! Except for the fact that the train is just one of the hundreds of places you could potentially spot an old acquaintance. You could be aimlessly wandering the streets downtown and someone could approach you with that long, exaggerated “heeeeyyyy” that you know is just code for “why me…”. Everyone around you starts looking at you, expecting a passionate embrace or a fight to break out, and they just look so disappointed when they see you and your long-lost pen pal are just standing their awkwardly talking about school or work.
On paper, the concept of spotting someone you recognize in public should be exciting and not necessarily something to Fear. It might be a dear, old friend that you haven’t spoken to in years, sure, but the reason why you stopped talking was because of that time you told his sister you had two tickets to play tonsil hockey and she didn’t know what that meant. (Editors note: does anyone?). Time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds. Time usually just serves as a catalyst for the intense awkward encounter that has been building for years. If there was a way to know you were going to be seeing someone you recognize before it happened, then that wouldn’t be too bad. You could mentally prepare for it; get yourself psyched-up and ready for the conversation or the uncertainty of whether you want to give them a handshake or a hug before you inevitably guess wrong before the embrace. Of course, you can’t see into the future and the only way to know the encounter was going to happen before it did would be to have powers like from That’s so Raven (Editors note: does anyone understand this reference either?).
Pivot & Run From Your Fear of Spotting Someone You Recognize in Public
So what are you supposed to do if you have a Fear of Spotting Someone You Recognize in Public? You can’t just run away and hide. Well, you could, but that would be really hard to explain to them if they walked over to you, cowering in Fear behind a lamppost. Best advice would be to just play it cool. Give them a handsome man nod vis-a-vis George Clooney and let them dictate how the conversation is going to go. If they seem excited, be excited too. If they just want this moment to be over with, insert a quick “it was nice seeing you” before leaping from the bus, 10 stops before your actual desired location. Things will be okay. Anything more than that would just be unnecessary.
