Sunday, January 01, 2006

One Thing Leads To Another

""Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares?... He's a mile away, and you've got his shoes!"" - Billy Connolly
You can plan a career. Heck, you can even plan a marriage, if you are so inclined. But what humans cannot possibly orchestrate, and tend, wisely, to leave to chance, are friendships. And that's one of the nice surprises about life.
You never know who you're going to meet, where and how. And of the gazillions of first encounters you will have over a lifetime, who is to say which people will end up being your dearest - and which ones will scoot off into the sunset, never to be missed?
I like that quality about human encounters. Supes, one of the sweetest people I've ever befriended, I met in a queue. Honest. ( I know, people use the word "sweet" to describe her as often as they use "alcoholic" describe me, but that's not the point. )
We were queueing in one of those interminably long lines outside uni admin on the first day of school, for heaven-knows-what. Don't get me wrong, I don't normally chat up strangers in queues. Maybe it was the sight of someone as bored and clueless as I was. Maybe she appeared nice, i.e. she didn't look like a psycho axe murderer. By the time we got to the front of the queue, we knew each others life stories.
Then there's Tim, whom I first met through Supes, because he was selling me his used coffee table. Even during those student days, he already looked and sounded like the first of my friends who will make his first million - in US dollars, too. Through him, I met Jo and Roy who are to become formidable Scrabble mates.
And then there are first encounters that were so unpromising at the start ...but some people whom I thought were unlikeable or aloof at first sight - like SK and Fang - ended up being mates who meet intermittently over coffee and yet can totally dissect each other love lives and dish out brutally-honest, mostly-unsolicited advice.
You never know who you're going to bond with. So here's to the first encounters in our lives. What they lead to may not always be smooth and trouble-free. They may not always be physically there. But you will look back and thank god ( or whoever you believe in) for the day it all started.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

shouldn't let others know that you're associated with drinking choop! =P one thing leads to another... m happy that i met ya.

- L

11:25 PM  

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