There’s something different about walking culture in France, if there is such a thing. Maybe “walking habits” is a more accurate term. In the US, pedestrians try to avoid one another; in France it seems to be all about route optimization: find the fastest, most direct route, and if someone else is on the same path coming the other direction, a near collision is not only acceptable but preferable. To that end, I’ve been working on perfecting vector prediction. What I mean is, observing the patterns of other walkers and adjusting course based on where I think they’re going. About half the time, it seems they’re doing the same, adjusting their path to engineer a near-miss with me. Other times, it seems I’m engaged in an unspoken competition to get to a corner, at which point our respective vectors veer in different directions and we’ll never see each other again for the rest of our lives.
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