\”Were you quiet at Berkeley?\” she asked, my friend\’s high school friend.
I nodded.
\”That\’s probably why.\”
In random talk at a party, I had asked her why my friend and I never talked until we came to CMU. He and I were in the same research group, lived around from the corner from each other, and had one class together. Yet, we never connected until we happened to be in the same masters program more than 3000 miles away in Pittsburgh, PA.
It\’s strange how the world works that way. Lately, I have been noticing how I get to know people only because of circumstance. Circumstances and that one connection–not always a mutual shared interest–brings people together. It\’s not that I was extremely quiet at Berkeley, but circumstances just never led me to connect with people.
At Berkeley, for instance, I remember having the same class as a classmate from my hometown. She and I barely talked during middle school and high school. We went to Chinese school in Oakland, took the same BART train there. But then suddenly when we were in the same class, that small shared experience just allowed us to make small talk to made us friends.
Friendships. Post hoc.
aren\’t most friendships started on circumstance? i mean, does anyone plan, say, to become friends with this particular stranger because of some arcane reason? or a particular type of person, because it seems to fit in with The Plan?
and some friendships start…just because. it\’s the connection, a familiarity that we think we find in another.