Awkward List

Awkward moments and more weird stuff

sidewalk

49. Accidentally touching someone's butt while walking

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The title of this post was going to be “. . .someone’s hand while walking” because it is way more common, but I figured that when you touch a butt, it is way more awkward.

There are many types of walkers, I notice them every day. Some people like to walk with their arms on their sides, others like to swing their arms around, people sometimes walk with hands in their pockets. Some walk slow, and others walk fast. Some walk with hunched shoulders, and others walk like robots.

On a documentary by National Geographic on Solitary Confinement, I came across information on the importance of socializing. What I found very interesting was that when two people that know one another find each other on the street and begin to walk together, they subconsciously synchronize their steps and walk with the same rhythm. This, apparently, is not enough to keep people from bumping into each other while walking together.

You’ve walked around with someone before, right? Every once in a while, you might walk with someone that struggles with it. Some people have a problem with walking straight and tend to pressure others into being too close to the edge of a sidewalk. Others become easily distracted while walking. These people are usually the ones that bump into you or other objects, so watching them crash into things becomes an every day thing.

But some of us have much more experience walking, so it really throws us off when our hands touch someone else’s while walking. Of course, we have to realize that our hand can be as close as 5 centimeters from another hand while walking. . so what is so awkward about this? Nobody really knows how to address it! Do you make a joke about it? Or do you ignore it, knowing very clearly that the other person is probably thinking the same thing? What about when you touch someone’s butt? While walking, hands are not very far from someone’s behind either, so its bound to happen in your life time.

Things I’ve heard after accidentally touching someone’s butt/hand:

  • “If you want to hold my hand, just ask!”
  • “Oh, sorry!” (even though it was my fault.)
  • “Did you just touch my butt?”
  • And my favorite: “Dude.”
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#17 The Sidewalk Dance

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I’ve seen this happen, but I never realized that it was awkward until it happened to me.

I had just gotten out of a meeting and was quite stressed out because I found out that one of my programs for student residents at my university dorm halls had to be postponed due to some paperwork problem. I left my coordinator’s office and went outside for a walk. Usually, I look up at the trees and say hello to people while I walk around, but not that time; my mind was elsewhere.

So while looking down at my blue Vans shoes cross the cracks on the sidewalk every other step, I encountered a pair of small black Converse shoes. I looked up and smiled nervously, a pretty girl had crossed my path, literally –and almost crashed into me. Almost immediately, I moved over to the left. But so did she. I shuffled over to the right. But again, so did she. This is where things got serious, no more messing around. I moved to the left and stayed there. . . at the same time that she did. Then I solved the problem by figuring out a cool trick: instead of moving in the other direction, I moved to the left again. Magic! It worked! At the time, I didn’t really stop to think of a solution, it came mostly by mistake. Oh well, great things are usually discovered by accident.

“There we go,” she said, “that was awkward.”

I replied, “It was fun, thanks for the dance.”

Of course, the encounter lasted no more than 5 seconds, but it seemed to take forever.The thing is, this –the Sidewalk Dance– kept happening with other people, up to the point where I believed that I was the cause of the problem; that I was doing something to trigger this. Though I still haven’t discovered exactly what I was doing, it was pretty awesome to begin getting used to awkward moments like these and finding the fun in them instead of making the situations worse for myself.

The laugh that the girl and I got from that Sidewalk Dance reminded me to smile again, and it changed my mood for the better even after having a rough start to my day. Awkward moments are awesome.