I walk down the street, not tripping over, walking dead centre of the footpath, walking like a pro. About one hundred meters away, someone (who I have never met before) is walking up the path, in the opposite direction. They haven’t yet made eye contact, because you rarely look upwards when you’re walking up-hill, otherwise you’re going to stumble like a drunk.

As she walks closer we make eye contact, “crap, she’s seen me” I tell myself. Our paths are going to soon collide – but do I greet or not? There’s about 20 seconds to run some calculations to determine whether a greeting is going to be exchanged:

Are they intimidating looking?
Do they look egotistical?
Are they preoccupied (music playing device)?

Good golly, she’s getting closer, and HQ hasn’t dispatched an official course of action. I seem to panic, and decide to instead shut my mouth, stupid in retrospect. She said “hi” just as our paths overlapped. Now I’m in trouble – it was the point of no return. It would look stupidly awkward if I replied now, as I would need to turn my neck before I could greet. You can really only safely greet before, or at the same time as they voice a “hello”. And if I didn’t reply? Well I would look like a douche as well, a silly non-caring Asian, the usual culturally-inward Asian you see on the street, my chance to buck trends, gone.

I increase my pace two-fold to the safety of the next street.