I had a weird thing happen recently. I work in a department store. I recently had a hospital visit
regarding something. The doctor there knew me from my workplace as i had seen her there for
well over a year. Upon opening the door and seeing it was her i was completely surprised as
i never expected to see her there and find out what she did for a living. After a appointment
she said i can now wave to you and say hello when i walk into your department store.

When she walked in i said hi as i was always based at the entrance. When she walked in i was
sort of ignored in a weird way, which surprised me. The second time i was flat out ignored.
Obviously there was a bit of a boundary present which is kind of confusing and people shouldn't
say things like ''i can wave to you now'' if you want a boundary between your professional
and normal life. My initial interpretation of the interaction would be we would say hello
maybe once or twice before it went back to nothing but i was very surprised to just be
ignored twice. There is no romantic intent whatsoever. Its more of a social awkward moment.

My conclusion is she didn't mean it at all and just wanted to keep her professional life
seperate. My plan going forward is to simply do the same, but still it was kind of a weird
reaction. Thoughts?


3 comments

  1. I agree that was an odd thing to say on her part since she didn’t actually intend on being social. I work in a hospital, the doctors are very weird when walking around. They walk extra fast, don’t acknowledge anyone but other doctors, and don’t make eye contact even in the cafeteria area.

  2. Maybe she doesn’t recognize you since you’re not in the normal setting she sees you. Idk some people are forgetful like that. I’m sure she sees tons of patients daily.

  3. Of course no one knows what she is thinking, but this is reddit and we get to have opinions not based on facts, I’m going to to take a wild guess :

    My thought is that she said “I can now wave to you” without thinking, then realised that doing so might potentially violate YOUR privacy and so decided not to.

    Why not, if you are ok with her waving at you, just ask her about it if you happen to be in her office and just say “I am ok with you waving.

    Also, my doctor opened a practice around a half hour drive from his home specifically so that he wouldn’t run into patients in the supermarket. Both so wouldn’t have to answer” I got this pain here doc ” questions in the frozen food aisle and for his patients privacy” hey Susan, good news, it’s not an STD ” (of course he wouldn’t)

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