How many times has this happened to you? You’re walking down the sidewalk, rushing to class. You’re caught behind a couple of people, but it’s ok because they’re keeping up a steady pace. Then all of the sudden, bam! They stop dead in their tracks to talk to a friend, check their phone or something, causing you to bump into them and spill your coffee all over yourself, ruining your outfit.

OK, that might be an exaggerated case, but still. Just keep walking, damn it! It’s always infuriating to be caught walking behind someone, only to have them abruptly stop in the middle of walking, forcing you to have to do some tactical dodge to avoid crashing into them. I can’t even begin to explain how much I hate when people do this. It’s just so uncourteous to show that much of a disregard for the people behind you. Like, can’t you do what you were going to stop for, but while also walking? The two aren’t mutually exclusive. For lack of a better idiom, you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

If you need to stop suddenly, please be courteous and step off to the side and do what is so important that it requires you to put your life on pause and put me at risk of knocking into you. Let’s say, for example, you’re walking down to class and you see a friend coming in the opposite direction. You remove your headphones for a quick “stop and chat”. Instead of doing so in the middle of the walkway, just step off to the side for a couple minutes for the duration of your conversation. That way, you don’t cause everyone behind you to rear-end you, and you don’t block the walkway for everyone else. If you have enough time to chat, you have enough time to move out of the way.

All I can say is just be mindful of the people around you. Campus is a public space and your actions affect everyone around you. So please, for the love of god, if you’re walking on campus, don’t stop randomly. It’s called a sidewalk for a reason. Because it’s for, you know, walking!

Please, please, please, just don’t do this.