Avoidance Tactics

Getting back to my fantasies about becoming a hermit from a few posts back, it occurred to me that the question is really one of whether I want to ignore the entire human race, or just a selected few groups and individuals.  The fact is that - apart from my relatives, who can be a real pain in the arse but I have no choice but to put up with, preferably in small doses - most of the people I have no wish to interact with are those that I used to work with.  Most specifically, those from my last full-time job, who all contributed to making my life a misery and the consequent collapse of my health, (which has taken years to restore).  Them and anyone affiliated to Reform UK, obviously.  Not to mention scousers.  But with regard to former colleagues, I've been doing pretty well since I left that employment, despite my former place of work being only a few hundred yards down the road from my house.  Thanks to my state of semi-retirement, I'm out and about during normal working hours, reducing greatly the chances of running into any of them.  That said, late afternoons and weekends are danger times for possibly running into them.  In fact, over the past month I've twice had to take evasive measures to avoid running into former colleagues during late afternoon visits to Marks and Spencer.  Ducking and diving behind the bakery shelves, I successfully managed to avoid detection.  After suffering two near misses there, I'm beginning to wonder whether I should simply boycott Marks and Spencer - I've never had such encounters in Lidl or Aldi, or Tesco and Sainsburys, either.

Quite apart from my personal issues with this particular group of former workmates, old work colleagues are always problematic to deal with regardless of how you got on with them or liked your workplace.  The amount of time one was exposed to them naturally breeds a certain degree of familiarity, resulting in a feeling of obligation to acknowledge them outside of the work environment.  The trouble is, of course, that more often than not, the only thing you ever had in common was that you both once worked in the same workplace, making conversation outside of that environment extremely difficult.  Basically, you are reduced to the sort of small talk you'd have with a complete stranger - and I'm pretty bad at small talk under any circumstances.  So, encounters of this kind are always difficult to the point of cringeworthiness, at the best of times, let alone when it is with someone from a work experience you'd rather forget.  And believe me, I've done my best to forget as much of that experience as possible, particularly names and faces.  Getting back to the hermit business, I have to say that I'm actually not doing that badly at it without moving to a cave or a hut in the woods.  Despite living near the centre of a large and busy town, I manage to keep myself to myself.   My needs have always been simple and now that I'm semi-retired, they are even simpler.  So much so that my work pensions I'm in receipt of. (I'm lucky enough to be from a generation where they pay out pretty early, while you are still young enough to enjoy them), are more than adequate to finance them.  I might not spend my days in contemplation or meditation, but I do enjoy having the freedom to simply sit on the sofa for a few hours watching old movies.  It is something that gives me immense pleasure.  Just being able to enjoy some solitude is hermit-like enough for me.