Yesterday
04/02/2006
…was Meet-Random-People-You-Know day
Yup. It is only slightly better than Run-into-random-relative-of-person-you-used-to-know month – cos with the random folk you know, you don’t have to feign some sort of neutrality. You can ignore, and it’s ok. I think. With their relatives, it’s a little more complicated.
For the cowardly there is only one thing to do.
Duck.
I get so good at ducking (damn, that’s a tough word to type!) that it’s second nature. And sometimes I forget to bring KF along. But ducking is convenient. No small talk, no pretences, no fake-affection necessary. Just pure and simple and efficient. The way I like it.
Yesterday while dashing out for breakfast at around 10am, I thought I ran past a college classmate. We used to hang out now and then, but kind of lost touch a couple of years back. Hurrying past it dawned on me that it was someone I knew, possibly a friend, yet for no particular reason I didn’t turn back.
At lunch I saw a primary school classmate at the side of the street. It was easy – I was in a car and behind a Winnie the Pooh screen. If I had been on a street I’d still have ignored him.
It’s the same at Chinese New Year visitings. I hate to have to do the whole “I’m working here, and I am/not married” song and dance. It’s almost everything someone’s interested in. What do people care what I do for a living? Or if I’m married or not? Or have kids or not? Does it really matter? Why doesn’t anyone ask me how I’m doing? Instead of trying to infer if I’m happy or not by where I work?
I was on IM the other day with another college friend and I told her I might have spotted her ex-roommate walking around my office the other day. She asked me if I stopped to say Hi. I said no, I ducked. She called me antisocial, I said I would rather have a conversation with my toenails (or something rude like that, only more poetically).
Trust me. Ducking is easy and convenient. And it saves you a whole heap of small talk. If it was really a friend you sincerely love and respect, you’d automatically leap up and run across the room just to say hi. You’ll know when you want to duck. I’m just saying, follow your instincts 
