The Clairvoyant Zoopraxiscope

I had the experience this morning, all too common in NYC, of walking very nearly beside a stranger, slowing down, finding that that person was slowing down as well, speeding up, feeling a brief sense of relief, and then, upon finding I had put some distance between myself and the stranger, slowing down, only to find myself nearly parallel with the dratted person once more. We want to engage, but think better of it, but then we think better of that. And that. And that. And that. How anyone gets anywhere, or ever makes any human contact, is a mystery to me, bound as we are by such Zeno-like constraints.