You may think the title to this post is a bit absurd, but I’d wager that almost everyone reading this has engaged in a tango with a total stranger at some point or another. I know I’ve had more than my fair share of experiences. You’re walking along, minding your own business when twenty feet away, your eyes lock with another person’s heading your direction. At this point, you’re hoping against hope that it’s not going to happen, yet it usually still does. You move right to go around, and she moves to her left, effectively putting you both on a collision course again. Quickly you make an adjustment to your route only to look up and see that she’s done the same thing. You’re no closer to solving this pirouetting predicament of circumventing the stranger, and you’re running out of time. Finally, after a few more failed attempts and with mere feet to spare, you both come to a complete stop and stand embarrassed about how the two of you couldn’t find a way to solve this without resorting to words.
Today, I’m going to tell you how to completely avoid these situations. The root of the problem lies in eye contact. Here in the western part of the world, we’re conditioned to maintain eye contact. Culturally, we believe that it shows interest and focus on what the communicator is saying. Unfortunately, eye contact can also be a sign of aggression or a means of flirting. In my opinion, eye contact shows attraction. When coupled with movement, it leads to this phenomenon of “quantum walker’s entanglement”, where both people are inexplicably drawn toward each other.
The solution, therefore, lies in breaking eye contact before your bodies become “entangled”. If you look away while maintaining your current speed and heading across the intervening distance, it is suddenly incumbent upon the other person (we’ll call her Mrs. X) to move out of the way or be run over. Almost without fail, Mrs. X will realize that your course is set and she needs to go around. The disaster is averted and no party comes away from the experience embarrassed!
Some of you more attentive readers noticed my use of the word ‘almost’ in the sentence above. The problem with any fool-proof plan is that the world is always making more ingenious fools. As a result, there are some cases where a person may decide they intend to walk straight through no matter what, in which this situation becomes a potentially humiliating game of ‘chicken’ with you not paying any attention to your opponent.
Again, a more astute reader may notice a second potentially disastrous situation arises if BOTH you and Mrs. X decide to use the method I’ve laid out. While many may contest that it is less of a red-faced experience to apologize for running into someone than to explain to your wife why you are engaged in what appears to be courtship dances with another lady, head-on collisions are wholly undesirable. Fortunately, the last step to my plan evades both issues.
After the look-away move, you need to return your attention toward your intended path right before contact is made. This gives you a chance to stop, should the other person decide to be a jerk or employ the same technique you are using. “How will I know when to look back,” you might ask. It’s a simple Algebra problem, like you’ve no doubt solved countless times in school:
Mrs. X leaves her initial spot, traveling North at a given speed (let U equal her speed in ft/s). You leave your initial spot, traveling South at a different given speed (let V equal your speed in ft/s). The distance between you and Mrs. X must be estimated (in feet), and will be represented as Δ in our equations.
Assuming constant velocity for both you and Mrs. X, our implementation of the distance formula is as follows:
(U*t) + (V*t) = Δ, where t is the amount of time it will take for both bodies to meet.
Simplifying:
(U+V)t = Δ
Solving for t yields:
Once you’ve estimated all constants (Δ, U, and V) and solved the equation above, you know how much time you have until you run smack into Mrs. X. Unfortunately, there is one more variable that must be accounted for. Since you’ve been doing this calculation while you’re walking, you must also account for that precious time you lost while solving for t and subtract it from the total number of seconds.
Therefore, the complete equation would be
,where ψ is the amount of time it took you to solve the previous part of the equation.
You know, in retrospect, it’s probably just better to look back toward your traveling vector after a second or two of glancing away. I would highly suggest this for people who are terrible at estimation or are mathematically impaired by fractions…or both.
Well there you have it! Hopefully this little info-blog will help you avoid those awkward social situations that sometimes arise from dancing with total strangers.
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