If you’ve ever looked an adorable little puppy in the eyes, you might have noticed that their eyes, unless looking to the side, are mostly dark. Inky black boba orbs staring back at you, with an excited little tail wagging behind.

Assumedly, you’ve also had the experience of looking a human in the eyes. Which, if you’ve noticed, is different. So much so that you can tell the difference between someone looking you in the eyes, or looking at your lips, or looking at your forehead, or looking past you. Try it, next time you’re in conversation—look somewhere other than usual, and watch your conversation partner react. You’ll see that they can see what you see. Because the human eye isn’t just developed to see, but also to indicate what it’s looking at.

Have you ever been walking in the same direction as someone, made eye contact with them, and short-circuited? All of a sudden both of you are attempting to walk past each other and failing. You do a strange little dance as you try to figure out which way the other person is going to move—and it’s agonizing. Let’s call this the “stranger shuffle”. It’s awkward. And it sucks.

What if I told you there’s a trick you can do to permanently avoid it?

You see, we can connect these dots by dissecting what happens during the stranger shuffle. As I described it, it begins with you making eye contact with the other person.

Most people don’t think about it, but the reason we’re able to have massive swathes of humans walk past each other without constant collisions is because we’re constantly communicating with each other nonverbally. Watch a video of the busiest intersections on the planet. Watch a video of pedestrian traffic in times square. You’ll notice that, for some reason, somehow, these pedestrians manage to walk past eachother without ever smacking skulls.

It actually goes back to one of the reasons the human brain is impressive. You see, when you catch a ball, your brain does a startling amount of intuitive calculation. It figures out the trajectory, the velocity, the acceleration, and manages to place your hand in the right location to catch it. Even a ten year old can manage it with some practice. But, for some reason, it’s taken us decades to replicate this same behavior in electronics—because we have to actually get them to do all the math explicitly. Or, alternatively, we have to do a lot of math to get them to do it themselves. And we’ve gotta make the robot arm, too! And robot eyes! It’s a colossal pain in the ass, and it only makes it all the more evident how impressive the human mind is. As does our walking example.

So, the stranger shuffle, and times square. How exactly are we communicating when we’re silently walking?

Well, ask yourself: what am I thinking about as I’m walking? Almost certainly, the location you’re headed towards is somewhere on your mind. This causes your eyes to drift past the eyeballs of the people walking in your direction and instead towards the place you need to be. Other people, capable of seeing your eyes and the position of your head, intuitively notice this and navigate around you. And this, my friends, is the key.

So here’s the idea: to avoid the stranger shuffle, and other miscommunications and awkwardness in your pedestrian traversal, simply look at where you want to go. That’s it. Don’t say anything, don’t indicate anything. Don’t make eye contact. Simply look where you want to go, and people will route around you. And, from anecdotal experience, I can tell you I am almost certain this works. Before I employed this technique, I found myself doing the stranger shuffle shockingly often. These days, I can’t remember the last time I’ve done it. There have been an incredible number of moments where somebody awkward or shy or timid is about to engage in the stranger shuffle with me, but is able to figure out how to keep moving once I lock eyes with my goal.

The moral of the story is this: look over the shoulder. You communicate more than you know, and being a mindful communicator means a lot more than just saying the right words. It means being thoughtful and compassionate about the impact your actions (especially subtle, intuitive ones) have on the world.