1 Happy St

Sometimes when I get home from work, my next door neighbor (the Mrs.) will be outside in the yard playing with her kids, so I’ll walk on over to say hello. It’s always a pleasant conversation (How have your days been since the kids got out of school?, We should get together to barbeque, etc), but for some reason, we always exchange awkward goodbyes. For instance, for some reason, we’ll say goodbye to each other at the same time, then we’ll have to say it again, and again we’ll say it at the same time. I always manage to walk away feeling stupid. Sometimes she mixes it up. Like the other day, we managed to pull off a flawless “goodbye”, but as I turned to walk away, she said something else. Then I had to turn back around and continue the conversation, but I was thrown off, so the whole thing seemed kind of forced and contrived. I managed to throw in a couple unfunny and awkward jokes along with a few forced smiles, and then we both botched the 2nd goodbye. It was brutal.

Why does this happen? And why does it only happen to me with this lady? I’d be interested to know if she does this to others.