Supermarket rant #2

This has happened to me more than once. Seriously. I think about 3 or four times now. I'd like to think its because of some special charismatic magnetic aura that surrounds me, but my wife just checked and apparently that's not it. *shrug* oh well...

Anyway, the issue is people crowding me. Again with the supermarket, but it also happened once in a larger mall while I was waiting outside a clothing store, too.

When I'm with people who are shopping, and I'm waiting for them, then I'll look to find a quiet place to stand where I can either people watch or just daydream. Now where things get weird is when I find that of all the open space available everywhere, a group of other people then end up standing uncomfortably close and just hover. Its like some weird flash trolling mob. They're not shopping for stuff where I'm standing, and this isn't the only quiet place in the store to stop to socialise, they just picked to stand really close to me, such that I almost look as though I'm with them.

The most recent case of this was when I was down south at a country supermarket, and ended up with a group of 6 asian uni students having their morning chat right up against me. What made this particular instance worse was that, as a group, we were now blocking passage through the deli section of the supermarket, and our configuration now meant that if a person needed to get through, they would most likely angle towards me to squeeze past. This group was indirectly forcing me to move and that was really burning me up. I've read about other people trying thousand yard stares, but my attempt at that didn't work, so in the end I shuffled a few steps left and went back to focusing on keeping calm.

Stuff like that makes me dislike people.

Now, don't take away from this that it is anything to do with them being asian, or uni students, or anything like that, as its happened to me from different age groups and demographics. You'll just get people from all walks of life who bug you, and I just have to learn to deal with it.