Talking about the sidewalk game with non-new yorkers on a work call probably wasn't my best idea

 

NYC sidewalks : Not like suburban side walks.

I was on a work Zoom the other day with a woman from somewhere in the woods in Washington state and this other woman from suburban Virginia. 

One of them started talking, I can't remember why, about some study she had seen about how women usually make way for men and step aside when encountering them on the sidewalk. Then the other one said something about another study showing that if one group is headed toward another group, the smaller group will always make way for the larger.

I was thinking, oh, I am very qualified to weigh in here. Like, excessively qualified. This is most every day of my life, playing the sidewalk game. 

Not to brag or anything, but I'm extremely skilled at this game. Some days I play harder than others, but yeah. Like, if I'm in a mood and a finance bro in a puffy vest is headed directly down the middle of the sidewalk staring at his phone and mowing down old ladies... you bet your ass he's gonna get hip checked, with a smile mind you, by the likes of me. 

Oh so sorry, I didn't see you either.
Sometimes a lower center of gravity is your friend.

Or groups who don't move over, I'll go flying right through the middle of them. Certainly I am strategic and pick my battles, I told these two women on the Zoom call. Who began to look horrified right about then.

In hindsight I possibly sounded fantastically aggressive. Like, hashtag thug life or something because that was the end of that conversation.

So yesterday I was having a drink with Cora and I mentioned my awkward Zoom call to her because she knows these two other women. I said to Cora, like, EVERYBODY PLAYS THE SIDEWALK GAME, RIGHT?

And Cora said, Absolutely. She said even on her way over to meet me she was a split second from elbowing a dude who was a veritable walking man spread. But then she decided not to shoulder him right in the ribcage with her handbag because an elderly man was wobbling up the side and she worried the old guy would become collateral damage.

We should have fist bumped right there in the bar, but we didn't. Because yeah, you can't live here for very long and not play the sidewalk game. It's sort of not optional, actually.

Just note to self not to bring it up with people from out of town.