Long Hallway Etiquette

There is this hallway I walk down every day to go to the locker room at the gym. This hallway is massive, easily 100 yards and most of the time is not occupied with other people, except of course when I decide to walk down it. Inevitability when I go down it, there is someone walking towards me, at the other end. Now my question is, when do you acknowledge that the other person is there? I mean it isn’t like you yell, “Hey what’s up?” from 100 yards away, but you have this awkwardness of walking towards each other. It’s where you both see each other, but are too far away to say anything. So you keep walking and walking, until you finally get close enough to acknowledge the other person. What if you don’t know the other person? I mean you have to at least say “hi.” I mean you have shared this 7 to 9 second walk together (which feels more like 10 minutes) from the opposite ends of this hallway; you have to say something right? Maybe a head bob at the very least to acknowledge the other persons’ existence, or a “what’s up.”

What happens if you know the person? Do you try to start a conversation that neither of you can hear because it is echoing off the walls, that you end up stopping and waiting until you are a few feet apart. Well then that brings up even more awkward silence between friends as you look at each other for 50 feet.

Where do you look? That is my other question? I mean if it was a movie and you hated the other person this hallway would be great for one of those movie-type stare down sequences. But otherwise you have to look everywhere BUT at the person coming at you, you have to, you have no choice. I usually choose about 10 feet in front of me with an occasional quick dart up to see when I need to give the head bob “what’s up.”

Now you can’t give the head bob “what’s up” to everyone. I work on a campus, so that is my student response. If it is a friend I will ask, “How’s is going?” and if it is a neither a student or friend I use the, “good morning.” as my main go-to greeting.

The sad thing is is that this enters my head every time I walk down that hallway. EVERYTIME. I think I have hallway issues.