Chicken - Do you usually win sidewalk chicken?

Hit me. Come on. Hit me.

The Joker walks forward, Batman speeds towards impact.

Last night, following a fairly late dinner, our party exited the restaurant. We headed to our vehicles. At an establishment nearby was a party, outside; compromised of 10-12 individuals conversing. Squeezing by them a friend of mine was nearly struck by a car moving to park in a stall. A larger truck had obstructed the driver's vision. Thinking about it, both on larger and smaller scales, it slightly infuriated me. It may be that I have an ego problem, superiority complex, compulsive argumentative personality, or some other social/mental disorder. I'm not sure.

Sure about what?

Well, in brief we have a sidewalk. Although only approximately 6 feet wide, would that not encompass a path traveling N and a path traveling S to be universally shared when two parties moving in the opposite directions vie for space?

In other words, if the party of 10-12 felt like conversing, a wiser spot to do so would be one that allows for convenient interaction without the burden on other people. Inside the club they had came from, at a restaurant, a place wider than 6 feet wide.

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit too anal about this.

I go hiking/jogging on trails often, also to malls and walk down sidewalks. I can't help but notice that I often move, a lot more than everyone else. Which makes me wonder.

Why am I moving? Why are they seemingly, not considering this an option on their end?

Today I decided to take notes. Each time I walked or ran, and had someone walking in my direction, on line to collide with me I tried my best to make eye contact. I walked up to approximately 10 feet on a direct collision course. If during this process the other person were to move, I would continue on. If not, I would deviate and allow them to pass.

Strangely, of the 50 instances, only 6 deviated. Of those 6, 2 were women, 4 were parents with children.

Changing the distance to 5 feet, I saw a large improvement.

33/50 deviated. A surprise statistic emerged here. Of the 33 people that deviated, 25 were men. Only 2 were women and 6 were parents with children.

Mind you, I got a few strange looks while conducting most of these experiments as I was walking back and forth over a 150m area. How else would I find this out though!?!?!

While I'm sure that I could draw soft hypothesis' from my observation I'm quite certain random fluctuation would prove far too high to have any bearing what so ever in terms of forming statistical definition.

I asked a few people why they didn't move, politely. Of the 10 I did ask, no women responded, or gave me brief glares, and no men did either, no glares either, with exception to one man in his 40-50's who said he thought I was going to move out of his way, or he would have. I asked him if he cared to comment on his yearly salary.

He left with a bewildered look of fear and confusion on his face.

My question: Do people who are walking at me, think they are better than me? has yet to be proven, or solved.


Does anyone think like this? Seriously, I'd like to know. I mean I can't help but feel that two people on one path should be much like flipping of a coin. Yet, after a while, continuous results of 70-80% tails following hundreds of attempts seems quite the contrary.

Again, sorry, maybe I have something wrong with me :P