When you pass different kinds of strangers on the sidewalk, what is your body language? What is your interior monologue?

Maybe some people have the same body language for everyone, while others have different body language depending on what the person they are passing looks like. Maybe you make eye contact. Maybe you never make eye contact. Maybe you look down at your feet. Maybe at some part of their body.

When you do this, you probably have an interior monologue that describes your thinking about the encounter. If you are aware of this monologue, can you replay it for us, here?

One thing I’ve noticed that I do is that I tend to look at a person’s mid section and torso. I do this because it is not always clear from their heads which way they will move. But if I look lower, I get a better sense of where they are going, and I can move if I need to to get out of the way. Of course, this means that I rarely look at someone’s face. It feels strange to me, but it’s a real effort to look up, unless I know the person.

This raises another question. Do you think it’s your job to get out of the way, or the other person’s? If it changes from person to person, what is the predominant behavior? Were you always like this, or did it change over your life?