Pushing lit buttons...

I smiled broadly as his hand grazed my ass in the tight confines of the elevator.

Ok...not really. Like, not at all. But it'd have been nice...

The doors had just closed, and I had gotten on with a very cute guy, tall, defined features, clean-cut without being overly pretentious. I was fiddling with my iPod, trying to get myself jazzed for an 8 a.m. class without so much as even coffee in my stomach and a gray walk to school in front of me. So it was nice to see some eye candy that early in the morning.

But wait a second...I know that guy!?

By now, I was facing forward following polite elevator etiquette, so chances of looking back casually to make sure I did indeed know the guy were slim. My ears were plugged with headphones, and his were too (from memory). So it was just the two of us, in the elevator.

The doors opened in the lobby and he managed to get out first. I followed, and was treated to the view of his back. Yep, I know him.

Well, of him. Kinda one of those friend-of-a-friend acquaintances, but he's also in my program. A person I wouldn't mind at the very least saying hi to on simple, professional politeness. But after our ride down together, I decided to just shrug it off and get my ass to class.

He was walking in the direction I usually do, so I followed at a bit of a distance until the next light, where we both crossed together and continued walking. A half-block past that, I jaywalked across the street, only to have him do the exact same thing a few seconds after me. Halfway across the road he turned his head back and looked directly at me.

Oh God, he's going to think I'm stalking him. Shit! Alright, I'll just keep walking, and he's bound to turn at the next intersection.

No luck. He walked straight through, and I haplessly followed. After all, this is my route to school, dammit, and if he bloody well wants to disrupt my coffee run that's his problem.

Naturally, when we kept walking in the same path for a few minutes more, I was really starting to freak out. This guy must really think I'm stalking him!

We hit the pivotal last intersection that we should both be turning at. He did, walking on the east side. By then I needed to get some distance between us, so I crossed over and walked on the west side. Seconds later, he walked into the doors of my usual coffee shop. Thankfully I chose to just go to another one, because if I had followed him I would have looked insane.

I made it to school without further incident, and shrugged it off as a freak occurrence. What are the odds, after all, that we would walk the exact same way, stop at the exact same shop? I mean, come on, weird. I made a mental note to say hi next time I saw him, maybe on campus, and try to laugh the whole thing off.

A few weeks went by, and he happened to brush past me while I was talking to someone else on campus. He waved at her, and she called hi out to him, but he didn't stop.

"Oh, you know him?" I asked Sam. She nodded.

"He's such a sweetheart, had class with him last year," she explained.

"Heh, he lives in my building," I mumbled.

---

Last week, it happened again. The elevator doors opened, and he was standing there, iPod phones in, back against the wall. Fuck.

By the time I got in, the doors had closed, and the woman standing between the two of us was jamming her finger into the L button with a fever. I guess she was running late. We rode down in silence, me awkwardly trying to shoot him glances and wondering why I can't simply stick out my hand and say hi.

The doors opened, and I got off first, heading down the road in front of him. He was walking behind me for a little while, but after I crossed the road twice, and looked back, he had disappeared. I guess he didn't feel like a repeat performance of the last time, or turning the tables and becoming my stalker.

So what does this say about society, or just about me? I mean, it'd be nice to have someone to randomly walk with to school, if we both happened to be in the same elevator, which is seeming to happen every now and then. But I couldn't turn and introduce myself to him, even though I'm fairly certain it could alleviate a bit of my embarrassment about the whole 'stalking' walks. Then again, he made no attempt to himself.

Are we, as urban citizens, consciously trying to block each other out? To walk to our destination, surrounded by thousands of people, but with the intent of viewing them as mere scenery like trees and skyscrapers? Is it a conscious thing to put in your headphones and drown the outside world out of your head, or is it just something we're conditioned to do on the mean city streets?

I'm hoping the third time's going to be the charm, and I'll have the opportunity to say hi to my elevator buddy, even if it's just to swap names.