Hiding when you want to be with others is not a particularly useful response? They didn't know where you were so started walking around; for all they knew you'd gone off to do something on your own. Next time "save" your place, tell someone where you're going or say something like, "I'll be right back". If you had started walking around when you came back and found them gone, you probably would have bumped into them sooner and would have had a mission instead of just worrying about if anyone was staring at you or noticing you alone; you would not have been as vulnerable to your anxieties because you would have been a moving target It was only accidentally that they ran into you, next time make it more likely to meet up with them by working to run into them.