At work the other day, a woman said she saw her ex on a bus and felt the need to make her best effort to avoid eye contact and pretended to not see him. They had a dramatic terrible breakup a few weeks prior, and the ex was a former employee.

This prompted a discussion about how many people we knew who, if we saw them, we would try to avoid them as much as possible, for whatever reason. Most people said 3-5, a few said too many to count.

I have only one. It's a woman I used to be friends/coworkers with. I had a manic episode around 7 years ago and texted a whole bunch of cringey nutty things to her and she blocked/ghosted me. I'm still sad about it to this day as she was a super nice cool person. If I saw her on the street I'd probably be too ashamed to say anything or acknowledge her presence.

What about you? And what happened?

I avoid most people, even family

Well yeah avoiding family is standard. I was talking more about people you previously didn't avoid and now you do for whatever reason.

I can understand an ex - the mental scars these days that are for all to see. It is more the ones that really you shouldn't avoid as you have no good reason other than your social awkwardness

Agree - I live out in the country, alone, and like it just that way.

There is only one person for me. In general, I really like everyone I know and I make an effort to see the best in people. But there is one person I can't stand to be around. And for good reason!

I also avoid almost everyone I know when out and about doing my business. I really can't be bothered with chit chat etc.

I've lived in the same town all my life so I know a lot of people, I cannot go to town or the supermarket without hiding in to avoid a conversation.

I think Covid has made me more of a grumpy old man...

I only have one person who is an old business partner that stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from my brother and me and also lost the hundreds of thousands of dollars we invested into the business.

I avoid him because the least that would happen is I would be arrested for assault.

Did see him in Home Depot four or five years ago and I've never seen anyone turn around, abandon their cart and leave the store so quickly.

He spent all of the money keeping his wife "happy" and he's broke now. Lived in a huge house and spent $120k of our money doing a simple rehab of the kitchen. Bank repossessed the house shortly thereafter. Had at least $150k of credit card debt as well.

Pretty much anyone from high school, college, and even later. Some strange part of my personality is that I prefer to meet and form friendships/relationships with new people and have some sort of insecurity about seeing people from earlier in my life. I think it has something to do with not living up to who I perceive I was in the past.

There's really only like maybe 20 people I really like and would go out of my way to greet. I'm keeping my head down for everyone else. Would hate having the "So how have you been?" conversation that would ensue, like I give a crap