I’ve had a spate of running into people I know on the tube of late.

These are not people who I know well and who I would like to talk to.

These are people I have a vague association with and would rather not see, especially at 8.45am when I am quite clearly doing something that requires the kind of mammoth concentration that is not to be broken. Like applying make-up, napping or perhaps frantically dabbing coffee stains out of my top. (Why is a spillage always around the boob area? Specifically the nipple area? So I look like I’m touching myself up when I’m actually just clearing up?! Argh.)

It’s always people who I know vaguely because of an old job, or a friend of a friend of a friend, or that girl from uni who’s a right pain in the arse. I have nought to say to them: apart from the usual soul-destroying shared vague recounting of what someone you both vaguely know may or may not have done at a house party five years ago, that you have a vague recollection of being at.

So this morning, as the Victoria line burrowed its way ever deeper into the chest cavity of our capital, I decided to take a stand.

I peered cautiously over the top of my paper and caught sight of a kid who used to be a text jockey at my old company. He hadn’t seen me. So I gathered up my belongings and barged my way down the entire length of the carriage. No mean feat considering it was busier than Ulrika Johnson’s womb.

So, no awkward hello. No stilted conversation to be aborted at the first sign of an exit.

Also probably monumentally rude. But I can live with that. It’s mindless small talk with a virtual stranger that ruins me.