Do you have difficulty standing still?
I don't mean you're a hyperactive gitchild who, when told to stand still, freaks out and starts kicking everyone. I mean more like, you're standing there, but you're doing everything possible to not just be standing there.
For me this sense comes from the fact I look a bit suspicious, and if I'm just standing there doing nothing I look even more suspicious. No I'm not about to maul your child, I'm just waiting for a friend.
So what happens?
I KNOW, PHONE!
I don't get texts, so when I take out my phone it's either to look at the time or pretend I have texts. Now you can whip out your phone, but there's an etiquette to fake-phone using. You can't stare at your phone slack jawed you have to be doing something, so you hit buttons but which buttons? You don't want to call someone by accident or you'll have to talk to them and I don't know if you've met my friends but I don't want to talk to them.
So instead you flip through bizarre phone functions you never knew you had like a useless calendar system or memos. Maybe you'll change your phone background to a picture of a flower or something I don't know.
Anyway the phone can only last so long otherwise people will twig on that you're fake phoning so we then...
LOOK AROUND
Looking around without coming across like a psycho is difficult if you're standing still, alone, in plain sight of everyone. You can't rotate your head sideways like a turret, but if you move your whole body it looks like a terrifying dance.
What I do here is probably the worst way to handle this: I rotate my whole body one way, then rotate it the other way. My arms normally swing with me, aimlessly. At this point I usually get a weird look, and what do you do then?
LOOK UP OR DOWN
Looking up or down while in public is the stupidest thing you could ever do, especially while standing still. You look like you're on drugs if you look up at nothing (unless you're looking at what someone else is looking at, to judge if they're on drugs), and if you look down you look petrified of the world.
But there's no choice if someone's cornered your gaze and you're standing there. So you look down slightly as if you've seen the most interesting thing in the world slightly below them and then you look away and the situation is disarmed.
Well that's nice, so now you can...
SHUFFLE UNEASILY
At this point you're busted: or at least paranoia and awkwardness have taken over and you think you're busted. Either way at this point your body is moving of its own volition and you're rocking backwards and forwards and while you probably don't think it's that weird it looks very, very weird.
You don't look like a zombie, but it's the sort of thing a zombie would do in its more docile, aimless moments. You're somewhat stuck at this stage. You have one option and really it's something else a zombie would do at this stage too.
WANDER AIMLESSLY
There are shops and signs which, while normally irrelevant to your life, are now the most fascinating things in existence. You need to stay within view of where you said you'd stay, but that could mean anything. You have essentially at this point given up standing still.
At this stage I will half-examine any piece of literature, signage or advert around me. If I wander into a shop (god help you if you do) I will realise I don't want to spend any money, but will continue scanning products that I don't want or need, whilst trying to convince any shop attendants that yes, I will eventually make a purchase and am not, simply, an idiot occupying space or a criminal mastermind hoping to steal a million Wispas.
I reckon this is a long shot but, well, do you do this?
"... and I don't know if you've met my friends but I don't want to talk to them."
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