Recently, you might have seen those “My Day From Hell: College Edition” videos appearing on your TikTok – a trend where students document what they consider to be the worst possible sequence of events a day on campus can offer. Maybe they woke up to having missed a compulsory 9 am class, or perhaps they realised, while hungover after being out, that they had drunkenly sent an alarming number of texts to an ex-situationship the night prior. What these scenarios all share is that they aren’t total catastrophes, but instead a series of uneasy moments that are just awkward and uncomfortable enough to throw your whole day off. And when I began to consider what my own “Day From Hell” might look like, I realised that it would almost certainly include an awkward encounter of walking right past someone I’d rather avoid – and that made me think about all the tiny things we do in those moments, the subtle moves we rely on just to survive the social awkwardness of the situation.
The moment you realise you’re walking towards them
So, I want you to imagine it.
You decide to take a picturesque stroll around St. Andrews. Maybe you’re enjoying the views of West Sands, or decide to do a spot of shopping on Market Street. As you do so, you spot a familiar face from far enough away that pretending you haven’t seen them yet feels slightly fake, but not far away enough for you to change direction without it seeming deliberate. For a brief moment, a wave of denial passes over you, the thought that maybe it isn’t them, followed immediately by the unfortunate acceptance that – yes – it definitely is. Suddenly, you adjust your pace and become acutely aware of what you should be doing with your hands.
This is the internal rehearsal that happens instantaneously. Do you decide to smile or nod? Commit to making eye contact, or opt for avoidance entirely? The stakes seem awfully high for a moment that will realistically last about 3 seconds.
Evidence of this collective uncertainty can be seen all over the internet, with many people asking the same question in slightly different ways: How do I make walking past someone less awkward? There are dozens of suggested techniques, from staring straight ahead and walking with purpose, to offering a casual half-smile – an act that proposes friendliness without committing to the small talk you suddenly feel obliged to endure.
Most of us, though, default to the same familiar tactics. The phone comes out not because there’s anything of interest waiting for us, but because suddenly the settings app seems really fascinating. Or maybe we receive a text we absolutely cannot wait another ten seconds to reply to. It’s less about being aloof and more about the idea that avoidance feels safer than completely misjudging the interaction altogether.
These encounters can sometimes feel strangely intimate, especially in a town where faces are familiar, but relationships remain undefined. You may know someone well enough to recognise them instantly, but not well enough to know whether acknowledging them is expected. Or worse, you run into someone you once used to speak to every day and now don’t speak to at all. In a moment where being too friendly seems embarrassing and being too avoidant seems cold, we hover awkwardly somewhere in between, hoping that the encounter will pass without incident.
And it always seems that these occurrences tend to happen as we’re already feeling slightly off balance – if we’re already running late or if we get caught in the rain. In these cases, even the smallest discomforting interaction can feel like the last straw. The interaction is rarely about the other person themselves, but about the vulnerability of your own self being perceived when you’d rather stay unnoticed.
learning by walking beside someone braver
For a long time, my personal instinct was always to avoid. Eye contact felt like an invitation to a conversation I wasn’t sure how to respond to. A smile felt too keen. Ignoring them felt outright impolite. There didn’t seem to be a middle ground that didn’t leave me overthinking the interaction for the rest of the day.
That gradually changed, mostly unintentionally, as I spent a lot of time around a friend who had no such hesitation. She smiled at strangers, greeted people she only vaguely recognised, and moved through town with enviable ease. When you spend a fair amount of time with such a character, avoidance becomes more difficult. If they acknowledge the approaching person, you almost have to follow suit. So, I did. And to my surprise, nothing terrible happened.
Most of the time, the interactions ended exactly how they began: with two people continuing their separate ways. Occasionally, it led to a brief exchange or maybe at least a shared smile or wave. But importantly, it stopped feeling like something to dread existentially. I won’t lie, though, there definitely still are times when I’ll spot someone slightly further down the pavement and once again feel that familiar, irrational urge to cross the road before they see me – but now more often than not, I don’t.
I don’t think the solution to these moments is confidence, at least not in the dramatic sense of puffing your chest and standing tall. It’s more about recognising that most people are just as wrapped up in their own internal monologue as you are, likely to be worrying about themselves, rather than analysing your response.
Walking past someone you’d rather not speak to will probably never feel completely comfortable, and that’s okay. These moments are fleeting and harmless, even when they feel disproportionately significant at the time. Interactions like this are part of the quiet social fabric of campus life – the smaller moments that you probably won’t even remember by the time it comes to graduating.
So, the next time you spot them from across the pavement and feel the familiar tension set in, remember it isn’t life or death; it’s just another unfortunate step in everyone’s routine, whether we like it or not.