This is not about people who move slowly because of age, or injury, or a body that hurts. They are going as fast as they can and this has nothing to do with them, and you know that.
This is about the other one. The able-bodied adult who could walk at a normal speed and has decided, in the middle of a corridor, in front of you, that today is a stroll.
Every one of these places
Crowded sidewalk. Airport terminal. Mall. Grocery store parking lot. Train station exit.
Places with a direction and a current, full of people who all have somewhere to be, and it works fine as long as everybody moves at roughly the speed the space is asking for.
Then one person does half that and the whole thing seizes up behind them. Not beside them. Behind them. And unlike a highway you cannot just change lanes, you have to physically negotiate with two strangers to get around a third one who has no idea any of this is happening.
Because that's the thing. They can't see it. It's all behind them. From where they're standing they're out for a walk on a nice day. The twenty people fanning out around them at escalating levels of rage do not exist, have never existed, and are not, to them, occurring.
The two-across
Two of them. Side by side. Full width of the path. Matched speed. No gap.
There is no gap. There has never been a gap. It has not once occurred to either of these people that a gap is a thing the world could use.
And I don't even think it's rudeness. Rudeness requires knowing. This is worse. This is the thought never arriving at all. The corridor isn't a shared resource to them. It's the room where they're having a conversation, and the conversation is winning.
The escalator
Everybody stops at the top. Every single person. Every time.
There is a place where the escalator ends and a place where a reasonable adult would stand, and for reasons nobody has ever explained they are the same place, and forty more people are being delivered there at a fixed rate that cannot be adjusted, negotiated, or appealed.
You stood on a machine for eleven seconds. You had eleven seconds to plan. You used zero of them.
The parking lot version
Down the middle of the lane. Car behind them. They know the car is there.
They're not moving. They're taking the full lane at their own speed, and if you get impatient about it that's your problem, because pedestrians have the right of way, a fact they learned once in 1997 and have been cashing in ever since.
It is not a big ask
Know that you're in a shared space. If you're slow, go to the side. If you're two across, one of you drops behind for ten seconds.
Neither requires stopping. Neither takes effort. Both require briefly acknowledging that other people exist and are also trying to get somewhere.
That's the whole thing. And it's apparently too much.
How to get past
- Match their pace exactly. Directly behind them. Close. Say nothing. Most people can feel it inside of four steps and will move without either of you having to speak.
- Split the couple. Go straight up the middle. Do not turn sideways. Do not apologize. They will separate. They have to. Physics is on your side and they will blame each other about it later.
- Say excuse me from further back than necessary. Ten feet out. Loud. Now the entire corridor is watching them decide what to do and the pressure is no longer yours.
- Commit to a side early. Whichever way they are drifting, pick the other one and pass wide. Do not hover. Hovering is how you end up walking behind somebody for a hundred yards having an argument in your head.
- Stop at the top of the escalator yourself. Once. Stand there. Experience being the problem. Then never do it again and become insufferable about it for the rest of your life.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't this a bit much?
Yes.
What about people who physically cannot walk faster?
Read the first paragraph.
What if I am the slow walker?
Move to the side and this stops being about you immediately. It is genuinely that easy.
Why does everyone stop at the top of escalators?
Nobody knows. It has been studied. It continues.
Should I say something?
No. Also yes. You will pick wrong either way and think about it in the shower.
A note on safety
None of this is advice. Number two started an argument in a Cleveland airport that is technically still going. We sell merch. We are not qualified to tell you how to conduct yourself in a crowd, a terminal, or behind a couple who have been walking at the same speed since 2019. Do what you want. You were going to.
