Meeting someone familiar...for the first time!

Have you ever felt that you have known someone for months even though you have just met them? Well, I had that extremely strange feeling yesterday when I had a spot of coffee with a person I was meeting for the first time. Well, strictly speaking, I had met this person before – he or she had been part of a group I had interacted with last year. But we had never really spoken to each other.

Anyway, over the past few months, we had swapped a few lines of text back and forth on the Internet – via email and chat. And had spoken on the phone a staggering number of times – oh well, just once! Well, we decided to meet over a cup of coffee on Sunday.

Truth be told, I was a bit apprehensive. This was a person known to be extremely quiet and who often did not have too much to say. Now, add that to the fact that I myself am not a chatterbox myself and I was expecting something like half an hour of utter, and maybe awkward, quiet. You know, I was kind of sitting around wondering if I would have to sip coffee noisily to break the silence!

Was I wrong!

You see, I ended up yakking for the next TWO AND A HALF HOURS (bringing the person to within inches of death by boredom, I am sure). And it was spectacularly diverse conversation. Among the subjects covered were: Achilles' heel and how the blighter resembled someone from the Mahabharata; numbers and their implications on human destiny; the meanings of names, and yes, I am sure I talked about the idiotic behaviour of some of the people I had the (mis) fortune to work with. This, to a person I was seeing for the first time.

It was not as if I felt as if I had to impress this person or to make conversation. I just felt...comfortable. I felt I could say anything and get an honest response. And that does not happen too often with someone you have just met.

I don't know if we will meet again, but heck, I would just like the person to know that, for almost three hours yesterday, he or she made me feel more at ease than I had felt for a while. And also made me realise that I could talk non-stop for that much of time!

I do hope our paths cross again in the coming days. I promise I will be more silent this time, if that helps!