h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Argh. I didn't expect to run into *her* here.

I got stuck at the end of a long table at dinner directly opposite a face from the past. There's a bit of history there. So there was a bit of mutual uncomfortableness. You know, the studiously avoiding eye-contact.

So, err, what do you do in such a situation? To be honest, the unspoken tension got so bad that when nobody else was looking I found myself making a funny face and wobbling my bottom lip up and down with my fingers. No idea what made me do that...

Well it broke the tension after a fashion...it caused a of soup over the table. After that I was getting evil glares instead of avoiding eye-contact.

But, it did lead to a couple of pints and a bit of a laugh and resolution after dinner that evening. So all is much happier than it was.

If there's a lesson in all of this, it can only be this: if you need to resolve a conflict or to put someone at their ease, make them spit their soup all over the table in front of 10 people.

(Or, more seriously, don't let things drag on for a couple of years without a resolution/burial of the hatchet. Being on non-speaking terms is no good. )

Humor has a reputation for breaking the ice -- sometimes literally, as when a foolhardy person skates onto tin ice and sinks....

Despite the ice clearance it's still sort of awkward. After yesterday, all day today we've kept ending up being seated in the same place at the same time. All over town.

There's probably still too much to be said that can't really be gone over in a crowd. Especially a big blended crowd of "her crowd" and "my crowd".

If we end up side by side on the same train home, I might be forced to hop off and catch a bus instead.

Phew. I escaped today. A wave from the other end of the street, but that's fair enough. It's the constant coincidental seating arrangements that were getting a slight bit annoying. (I think someone Up There is a bit of a practical joker...or someone down here, for that matter!)

If you were in the plot of a movie, by the end you and she would be a couple.

Don't even joke about that. Once was enough!

I've now got a comfortable buffer zone of about eight or nine towns, so there should be no more weird coincidence.

Breathing space is a very welcome commodity.

Needless to say, you are not in the plot of a movie, so relax.