I’m walking with two friends on a narrow sidewalk, en route to a barbecue at an apartment none of us has ever been to. We fall in behind another group of three – a man his two young sons. My friends exploit an opportunity when the sidewalk widens to pass the group, but I’m too late, and decide to wait till we’ve turned the corner onto a cross street. The group of three, however, also turns the corner, and just as I’m about to make my move, my friends halt: we’ve reached the apartment building. They ascend the steps to ring the buzzer – and so does the group of three! For a moment I wonder whether this group has also come for the barbecue, and prepare myself to exchange some awkward pleasantries in the stairwell. But no, it turns out they’re residents on the ground floor, and they’re forced to pass by my friends in awkward silence.