I strive for awkward situations. I love my fair share of saying "out-of-place" things and making eye contact for just a little too long with someone. However, there is one awkward encounter that I try to avoid every single day. The walking "deadlock," so to say.
We have all been in this situation. You're walking around campus, in the mall, into the bathroom, or in your residence hall when, all of the sudden, it happens. Another person is in your path. In order to avoid this person, you step to the right. However, in their best attempt to avoid you as well, they step in the same direction. You see their lateral movement and decide to quickly adjust and move in the other direction. Your counterpart is on the same wavelength as you, though, and blocks you off. Soon enough, you're both doing a little jig and a little jive with each other in tight quarters or out in public. Finally, you concede, step to the side, and let the person through, but not before the imminent awkward chuckle, the "Sorry about that. You go ahead." and the matador type movement with your arms.
This situation kills me a little bit inside each time it happens. Sure I like to let go of all of my worries and dance every once in a while, but I usually save that for shower-time or impromptu dance parties in the dorms. I know that whenever I enter this situation, I am going to forfeit the right-of-way to the other person.
Nevertheless, operating systems must feel the same way when they reach a deadlock. A deadlock is the result from competition for non-shareable intersections during a process. It is an awkward encounter that can only be solved by one process letting the other process go through the non-shareable intersections first.
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