Conclusion to this post: Long hallways are extremely awkward.
There you have it. No need to read further unless you're trying to keep yourself from checking your e-mail account for the 7th time this morning.
Back to original thought: hallways. No one knows which direction to look when walking down long hallways. Right, at the pictures of old dead men? Left, at the fascinating design of concrete blocks? or straight ahead at the person who is coming towards you, but you would think was being beamed up to a UFO by the way he's looking up at the ceiling?
It only becomes more agonizing when you have to decide whether to acknowledge that there is a human being in your presence, or not. And if you do, what do you do then? head nod? smile? an Irish jig?
Its worse though if the hallway is so long that you don't know if you are acquainted with the other individual or not. That's when your happy if you decided against the Irish jig. If you don't, you might just be safe. But if you do, you risk waving before you're actually close enough to carry on a conversation and thus wait just looking at each other removing yourself from humanity and placing yourself in the category of two brown cows.