This is the first part of a five part entry called "Awkward Encounters of Daily Life." The goal of this series is to draw attention to the inescapable fact that life is awkward and that awkward encounters happen all the time.
Now, many people find public bathrooms inherently awkward. I am not one of those people, but I experienced my first awkward bathroom encounter today in the library. I was in one stall of a two-stall bathroom today with another person in the bathroom. The other person was ready to leave the bathroom before I was, and, on her way out, turned off the light while I was still in the bathroom.
I quickly evaluated my situation and realized that I had one of two options. They were:
Option 1=Ignore the fact that I was now attempting to operate in a very dark, creepy bathroom in the library in which I was unable to see anything. The pro was that I would narrowly escape an awkward encounter. However, getting out of the bathroom would have been far more awkward.
Option 2 (the option I chose)=Try to yell (before the person had a chance to get out of the door) that I was still in the bathroom and needed the light to be on. Now, this was very awkward, because not only did I have the speak at a pace that was faster than normal speech (in order to assure that I would be heard before the other victim of this awkward situation escaped), but I also had to speak louder than I normally would in the library (in order to assure that I would be heard). This also created a situation in which I felt awkward even after the awkward encounter was over because now I was wondering if everyone in the surrounding area outside of the bathroom had overheard the awkward situation.
Conclusions:
The awkwardness of this situation is inescapable, so it really does not matter whether you choose option one or two.
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