You're out and about running errands and you see someone you know: I assume normal people approach the friend or family member and enjoy a friendly laugh over the coincidence of running into them, or what odd things are maybe being put into their shopping cart. Normal peeps catch up a bit, exchange a hug and move on.

I, on the other hand, make an insane point to dive down the closest aisle and cower behind a display of Foster Grants readers or a diaper-pyramid endcap.

Why do I do this? Good question. It isn't that I dislike the person I'm playing hide-and-seek from. And it has nothing to do with vanity. I'm not shopping in a bathrobe with zit cream on my face. Whatever I leave the house wearing, I would be just as comfortable sitting in at the Kennedy Honors ceremony.

I just have the strangest feeling that when I'm out shopping at Target or the grocery store or drug store: I leave the house with a false sense of being invisible. Now I'm coming face to face with a neighbor or a blood relative (yes — I one time ditched down a school-supply aisle upon seeing one of my big brothers, who I love very much!) and I immediately feel uncomfortable making small talk over a cart filled with yoghurt, razors, cleaning products and socks. Suddenly all of these items feel very private. It's a feeling akin to rifling through someone's journal or bedside table.

I guess I can't bear to make the expected joke of how you only came into the store to buy paper towels, so why the hell is there a nightgown, the director's cut of The Money Pit and 50 tubes of lipstick in my cart?

I wish we lived in a world where we only ran into people that a) we had been intending to message that day; b) someone who owes you money; or c) the next great love of your life. It's not like running into people you know at a rock show, because that's expected.

I once spotted Bobby McFerrin at the book store, and I am truly a major fan and might have even approached him as I had met him once in a professional capacity. But wait! He's browsing the Human Sexuality section! Lord, Looch, let Bobby be! Who knows what he's researching, thinking he, too, is invisible. Make like a banana and split. Which you better believe I did.

Fer god's sake, we weren't exactly in the Hustler gift shop. He was probably being a good dad and trying to find a "how to talk to your young daughter about Menses without traumatizing her" book.

Ever run into your shrink out and about? "Wow, that's comfortable!" said no one ever. Suddenly this person you've shared every intimate detail of your life with is standing in front of you in the checkout line, flipping through a copy of Kardashian Weekly with a questionable month's supply of Reddi Whip and stool softener in their basket. You are suddenly feeling like the other woman. Take cover, because you've become "Becky with the good hair."

You are not supposed to see someone in their "play clothes" when you've only associated them with a certain designated location where some wretched childhood stories have been exchanged and they've definitely seen you ugly cry. Abort! Get out of there! is all you're thinking.

It's weird enough when you're alone and spy your psychopharmacologist, but if you happen to be with someone who has never met your doctor … praying for a Nixon-mask disguise to drop from the sky ain't going to happen. How do I introduce them? We've never discussed the rules for this scenario.

All etiquette, manners and common sense are oddly absent: "Uhh … This is my accountant, former teacher, old landlord, parole officer??"

I take comfort in the fact that Larry David addressed this exact problem in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which he spotted his shrink at the beach wearing a thong and had to terminate their business relationship.

A band I was interviewing once told me a hilarious story of when they saw Jimmy Page in an airport. Every instinct was to approach their guitar hero, until they realized he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Hold on, that changes everything. They could never un-see him and his shirt. I understood completely with no further explanation needed.

Hammer of the Gods+ Hawaiian shirt = NO.

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