You know when you're walking on the street and someone comes out of a building, or turns the corner and is suddenly walking beside you, in the same direction, at the same pace? This is an incredibly frustrating thing that we don't often talk about, because you kind of feel like an asshole for being annoyed by it, right? Someone is walking next to you, that's such a nice thing... but it is disturbing your flow, and your energy, and suddenly you are mad at this total stranger for making everything awkward and also for making you question what kind of neurotic misanthrope you are to get annoyed at such a thing. You are left with three choices:
1. You can change your pace to fall out of synch. To do this, you can use the "Oh I have to check my phone and therefore am naturally slowing down to do so" maneuver. This will place The Enemy in front of you, and your eyes can burn daggers into their back. Or you can passive aggressively speed up, letting The Enemy know what they did is not okay. For added dramatic effect, let out a large sigh when you do this. It's okay, the city lives off the psychic pain of such sighs, you are just feeding it what it needs.
2. Wait it out. See if the other person is also frustrated by this enough to do the above. After all, you were there first, why should you have to be the one to fall out of this artificial synch? The problem here, and what makes this awkward synchronized walking thing even more frustrating, is that the other party almost never seems annoyed. It's as if they don't even know about the disruption they have just caused in the universe! Oh to be so blissfully unaware.
3. Hold their hand?
Comedian and composer Daniel Koren has addressed this issue in the below, beautifully shot video (he tells us it was directed by Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" interactive video director).
