Surely, you know what I'm talking about. When you're walking down a stretch of hallway by yourself, and it's obvious that there's nothing else occupying your attention, and all of a sudden, say, fifty or a hundred feet away, you notice an acquaintance of yours. Not a close friend, or someone you talk to on a daily basis; instead, it's an old teacher, or maybe someone who was an assigned partner to you one time or someone with whom you might have exchanged a few friendly words some time ago.
You are then presented with a certain window of distance and time - the interpersonalgreeting threshold - to greet this person, if you so choose.
If you greet them beyond the outer boundary of the interpersonalgreeting threshold, you are stuck with either maintaining eye-contact for a rather awkward length of time until you pass one another (because you are merely acquaintances, and not even close enough to fill up that space of time with mindless chit-chat) or diverting your gaze and staring at the floor, which makes both of you look just as stupid.
If you greet them beyond the inner boundary of the interpersonalgreeting threshold - looking up, suddenly, in feigned surprise, to interject a quick "Hey!" - you look as though you are stoned and have no idea of what your surroundings are, especially if the hallway is completely devoid of other people or posters or what have you to attract your attention, as may often be the case.
Subsequently, you are presented with the interpersonalgreeting threshold, a certain window with a vague beginning and a vague end in which you can greet the other person, acknowledge their presence, and save face.
How the heck does one ascertain these vague boundaries?
Even once that is out of the way, you have all sorts of other issues to worry about. You could solve this problem entirely by staring at the floor and not saying hello to anyone. Of course, then you risk looking like a pompous ass.
Or what about those instances when, heaven help you, you actually make eye-contact with the other person far, far beyond the outer boundary of the IPG threshold? What then? Do you just pretend that it didn't happen, that your eyes were wandering and that you weren't looking at them, but through them, unaware of what your eyes were taking in, and then look up at the last minute and smile and say "Yo!"? Do you hold eye-contact with them all 200-feet and creep the shit out of them in the process, or, better yet, play a game of chicken with them and dare them to be the one who looks away first? Do you quickly look for someone, anyone who you know slightly better than this other person with whom you can engage in a conversation, to fill up the time before this person gets to you, or act like you're intrigued by that oh-so-fascinating poster about how to treat your venereal disease immediately to your left?
What do you do?
Or what about those times when this acquaintance has, in fact, forgotten all about you, and respond to your greeting with "WTF, mate?" Or those times when you yell down the hall to your close friend Mary Sharples who is, in fact, from a closer perspective, clearly male?
Meanwhile, while all this stuff is whizzing through your head the other person is wondering the same thing. What if they are the ones who greet you way too early? Do you smile, curtly, and allow them to save face, or do you look at them like they're crazy? What if they mistake you for Mary Sharples? What if they raise their hand to wave hello to you, but, in the process, their hand brushes along a rope running along the ceiling, the rope snaps, and an anvil falls on your head?
What do you do?