Friend about to run into something- possibly injurious -- you tell them, right?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Okay, I was thinking about stuff, like I tend to do, reminiscing about amusing moments in my marching band past, and two incidents came to mind that make me wonder if I have really awful friends who want to see me injured.

The first was high school, my senior year and only HS year in color guard, at an exhibition. This was after my band had performed (we were tiny, less than 30 members, so we went really early), and I was walking back to the designated bleacher section with a group of friends. I was a few feet in front of them, walking backwards so I could talk face to face with them, and then BLAM, I fall right on top of a girl from another band who was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk area. Very embarrassing, and painful. Probably more painful for the other girl since I basically backed into her and sat my fat butt down on her head, then fell in her lap, but anyways… my friends obviously saw that this was about to happen, and yet, they didn’t say, “Hey Tara, look out, there’s a girl behind you.” or “Watch out.” or anything, they just let me back my ass right into this chick.

The second was my freshman year of college, at a band show in Canada. Part of our color guard uniform was face glitter, god knows why. But I had sparkly glitter all over my cheeks, it was sunny, and I could see the reflection of the glitter on my face in the lenses of my glasses if I crossed my eyes just right – So I was distracted, because, hey, it was sparkly! I’m walking along, being distracted by this glitter and obviously not looking where I’m going, my best friend in guard (who later became a roommate, now an ex-roommate and still great friend) is a few feet behind me, following me. I look up from my cross-eyed glitter reflection and stop – my nose is about two inches from a big metal signpost. Another step and I completely would have slammed my face right into the thing. And my friend said nothing!

Another friend of mine recently walked into a lamppost while waving to a guy, her friends who were with her did not warn her.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I saw a friend was about to run into something, or accidentally hurt themselves in some way, I would TELL them so, not just let them ram their heads into a post. Makes sense, right?

So do I just have really bad friends who want to see me hurt myself? Share similar stories and tell me that lots of people do this and I don’t just have friends who hate me. :slight_smile:

2

Not too awful long ago I was at the mall with one of my friends and was riding up the escalator - the down escalator was right next to it (Imagine them in an “X” shape. I stuck my head out over the railing because I thought I saw another friend on the lower level and was craning to see if it was her. It wasn’t, and just as I was about to stand back up straight - “WHAM” went my head into the lower side of the down escalator. I saw stars after that, and the friend I was with was laughing harder than I’ve ever seen him. Meanie.

I also backed off a stage a few weeks ago and landed on my head. Several people tried to warn me, but I’m profoundly deaf and didn’t hear them.

On the flip side of not warning people of dumb things, yesterday a guy I know kept bending over trying to fix a speaker and his buttcrack showed (A LOT) every time he did it. In the middle of a stage in a nightclub. Butt facing audience. None of us had the heart to tell him. I do have pictures, though.

3

I’ve been the ‘silent observer’ in a couple of cases like this, and my thoughts in each case have gone something like this:

“Oh, hey, that’s AntaresJB walking over there”

“She’s walking over to that post”

“She’s not slowing down”

“She has to be able to see that post”

“???”

“Can she see it, or should I say something?”

“I’ll look like a moron if I shout a warning for nothing, but…”

“Holy shit, she doesn’t see it!”

(speaking)
“WATCH-”

clongggg

“-out for that post.”

It’s not that I take pleasure in seeing people get hurt, it’s just that, unless they have a definite history of walking into stuff, I just assume they know where they’re going better than I do. By the time it’s clear that they don’t, it’s usually too late.

4

Sublight – good point. That was B’s excuse for the distracted-by-glitter event. But she should KNOW I’m easily distracted by shiny things! But in the other one, I was walking backwards, so I obviously had no idea what was behind me. In my other friend’s case, IIRC, she informed me that her friends actually stepped back and waited for her to run into the lamppost, knowing that she was waving to a guy she had a crush on and, though he hadn’t seen her waving, he surely would notice her running into a pole, and laugh. But that may just have been her overly suspicious mind, who knows.

5

True, walking backwards should make it obvious that you couldn’t see. I can only assume their failure to warn you resulted from their being hypnotized by your charm, beauty and wit.

6

Aw, Sublight, charm, beauty, and wit? You flatterer, you. But nah, I’m pretty sure they just secretly hated my guts and wanted to see me fall on top of this poor girl. Or maybe… they were jealous, of that whole charm-beauty-wit thing. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Oh wait, two of them were girls and the other one was a gay guy. This makes no sense to me.

Anyways, more people tell stories of when no one stopped you from running into something!

7

Uh…

Sorry, but some of us actually look where we’re going.

[sub]p.s. - don’t walk backwards
p.p.s. - get better friends[/sub]

8

I’ll go along with Sublight’s “I can’t believe she’s actually going to do it!” explanation. At work one time, I was talking to someone who was a few feet away and, I think a little behind me. Since I was concentrating on what I was saying to him, I walked straight into a forklift. No, it wasn’t moving at the time. Since he was only a coworker, he didn’t know me well enough to know I am capable of just that sort of thing. Fortunately, my friends do!

CJ

9

I have a friend who is fairly brillant but once she gets fixated on a topic, she tends to ignore everything else. So when she’s walking and talking she tends to concentrate on what she is saying and not where she is going. Whenever we would go to lunch, I became her guide if I saw that she was “on a thought roll.” I constently was gently pushing her around other people, signs cars, trees - you know trees can sneak up you, they just look sedentary. I even got bumped by a moving car once while moving her out of the way. That was the driver’s fault, we were already halfway across the street before he appeared and tried to make a right turn, but my friend never saw it coming. I can’t chide her too much on it though, I’m a clutz myself.