I *Never* Run Into People I Know
When my mom and sister were visiting, I said “I *never* run into people I know”, which I always find surprising because I feel like I know a lot of people1 And, of course, about 3 minutes after I said that, as we were walking across Pacific Boulevard, a driver stopped at the light starts yelling my name. It was a former coworker of mine who just happened to be driving by. “So, what’s that about never running into people you know?” my sister said.
Since that time, I’ve been constantly running into people I know. This includes, in no particular order:
- a former colleague from my previous job, who also has a new job in the same area of Vancouver as me, who happened to be on the 84 bus when I was taking the 84 bus
- another former colleague who was walking down 8th Ave while I was walking the other direction on 8th Ave
- a friend of a friend who was running west along the seawall by Olympic Village as I was running east
- my friend Alicia who was sitting outside of Whole Foods while I was walking past on my way from work to Canada Line2
- a professional colleague who was walking past a restaurant patio I was sitting on while having a beer with a friend
- my boyfriend’s brother-in-law’s aunt, who I met at a recent family function, while taking the elevator at work3
- two of my MBA classmates, who were in a pub that I was in with some friends before our book club meeting
That’s 9 people4 in less than 5 weeks! I don’t know how often other people randomly run into people they know, but I feel like I probably didn’t randomly run into 9 people that I know in the previous 5 years!
Extremely tangentially related: This song just popped into my head and now I can’t get it out.
- I have friends and acquaintances from 6 years of PhD school – including tonnes of people I met through the science outreach that I did – plus from 8 years of working in three different health organizations and from several hockey teams – and from playing in the 10-day long hockey game (where there were 40 players and dozens upon dozens of volunteers) – and a surprising number of people from blogging and then the 49 other people who I did my MBA with (plus profs and staff at the b-school) and then I know a bunch of friends groups of some of my friends. I’m one of the most extroverted extroverts who ever extroverted. [↩]
- What was extra funny about that was that I hadn’t seen in her ages until the day before this, when we had gone paddle boarding. So it was funny to run into her the very next day! [↩]
- This one wasn’t super surprising, as we’d discovered that we work in the same building while chatting at said family function; really, the surprising part was when we discovered we work in the same building. [↩]
- And I feel like there might be more that I’m forgetting! [↩]
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