To Say Hi or Not To Say Hi

Walking around Berkeley, or anywhere, one encounters many dilemmas.

The end.

Okay just kidding.

One of these problems is the notorious “To say hi, or not to say hi.” I'm sure a lot of people have experienced this before, but it happened to me earlier and it got me thinking.

Here's a possible scenerio.
Basically, the choices after the sighting are:
a) freak out, run, and then hide
b) decide to be the bigger person, say hi, and risk possible humiliation.

So, here we go:

I was walking to class around 12:30ish today and I saw one of my old GSIs (Graduate Student Instructors) and in my head I went “Hey Jackson! Nice to see you!” but in reality I just kinda awkwardly looked at him and then looked away and pretended nothing happened. Classy.

The truth is that I was in Jackson's discussion group in the Fall of 2007 - - so my first semester of my freshman year at Berkeley. That's a long time ago when people have multiple classes and 30 students per class. He definitely did not know my name in that class, so I wasn't about to kid myself into thinking he'd even recognize me now. But then again, there's always that chance that he might remember me if I reminded him of how I was that one girl who was absolutely CLUELESS when it came to Marx and his Communist Manifesto. How when he asked what Marx might say to me if he stepped off the BART I responded, “Well uhh......he seemed kinda in favor of violence.....so he might ask me to yell at people to start a revolution.....” to which Jackson responded, “I think I just failed at life.”

With those memories to back me up, I can't imagine why I was so hesitant with the greetings.

But come on now, should I really have said hi, or was it pointless?

I bet people do that all the time, right? You see someone you only kinda know and you're not really in their line of sight so they probably won't see you but if they did see you then OF COURSE you'd say hi but they won't so you don't.....

Well, same here! When I was awkwardly looking at Jackson in his pastel yellow hoodie and signature cowboy boots this morning, what I was actually doing was picturing a scene in which I interrupt his walk to wherever and start my spiel about how I was this person in his class one time that Wendy Brown taught about political freedom and it was cool to see him and what's he doing these days and oh is he on his way somewhere? and oh meee too, yeah class, because that's what students do at Cal ha ha that's funny okay byee - - and weighing out the consequences of whether it was really worth it in order to voice a simple hello.

So I didn't say hi. But I can't help thinking that I should have. Because I really had nothing to lose. And after all, isn't it just nice to be recognized sometimes?


xoxo