Do you prefer pedestrians crossing the road keeping eye contact or ignoring you?

I’ve always felt awkward, when pedestrians look at me and wait for me to pass them until they can cross the road. I’m talking about low traffic streets when the pedestrian and I are the only people on the street. I occupy like 80cm (30”) width with my bike. The pedestrian another 80cm. The street is 5m (15f). I always think: “Just walk, I can pass behind you”.

The worst is when they look at me but keep walking a few steps, so I adjust course to pass behind them, and then they stop to let me pass first so I have to adjust again. Not a huge deal but somewhat annoying.

Then I was in Vietnam for vacation. tons and tons of scooters. They wont stop for you if you want to cross the road by foot. I was told NOT TO LOOK and just cross road with constant predictable speed. It’s easy to dodge a person moving predictably. When I was looking at them, they didn’t know if I wanted to let them pass or not. My movement became unpredictable and therefore dangerous. Once I stopped in the middle of the road with scooters swarming before and behind me, I didn’t dare to start walking again, because that again would be an unpredictable movement. Next time I just crossed without looking and it worked.

As a cyclist, do you prefer pedestrians that want to cross the road to wait for you or to just walk predictable and easy to dodge?