5. Look up at the sky and pretend you’ve taken a keen interest in the difference between stratus and cumulus clouds. Who would dare interrupt a budding meteorologist?

4. Close your eyes and pretend you’re reenacting your favorite scene from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Bring the sass. Bring the hand gestures. People will be intimidated and allow you to go about your business.

3. Skip — it’s the only classy alternative to a walk. If your eye level is a moving target, it’s harder for people to make direct contact. First, I’m up here. Now, I’m down here. Oops, sorry, I’m too busy skipping to look thoughtfully into your eyes.

2. Run, just run. The quicker you move, the less time you spend on Cross Campus, and the smaller chance you have of awkward eye contact with that girl from your first-year seminar.

1. Looking for a last resort? Take a fake phone call. Put your finger to your lips and whisper “shh, shh” to anyone that tries to interrupt.

Top Five Ways To Avoid Eye Contact with People You Kind-of-Know as You Trek Across Cross-Campus was originally published in The Yale Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.