The other night I was going to an event with two of my very best friends. While there, someone who had already met them before ended up running into us. They ended up sitting next to me during this event. After the initial greetings between them and our mutual friends they turned to me.
“Have we met yet?” they asked.
“We have not.” I answered.
“I’m Kevin.”
“I’m Llewellyn the Grey.” (I actually gave the name I go by instead of my pseudonym, which I have still not decided on sharing as I am still up in the air about whether or not I want to be relatively anonymous or not to the larger public)
Instead of ending the introduction with a “Nice to meet you” or some other usual social nicety, he ended up saying something along the lines of “Success at meeting” or something that felt more like meeting was the goal of some adventure. That got me thinking about the likelihood of actually meeting anyone.
I mean, meeting people throughout your life is actually kind of a no-brainer as long as you are not actively avoiding meeting people. However, when you take that down to specific individuals meeting, it ends up varying a little more. The likelihood of you meeting your parents and other immediate family is rather high, but the further off you get from your birth and people who are already nearby to your family (both in relationships and proximity) the less likely you are to meet.
I have moved around quite a lot growing up, and know hardly anyone I was in elementary school with. I don’t really have contact with people I went to middle or high school with any longer. The probability of me meeting any one of them was actually fairly low. The likelihood of me having known anyone that I now know was incredibly low a few years before, and was at some point extremely low considering how many of the people I now know I met because of a single person that was in my life whom it was also not very likely that I would ever have met them.
To look back and think of all the things that had to happen for me to know anyone that I know can be a little bit overwhelming. I honestly can’t even single out one life event that was more instrumental in meeting my friends because there were so many large and small events that were all intertwined to bring me to the place where I am.
Because of this, whenever I do the thought experiment of “If you could change x, would you?” I almost always end up answering with a no, even though I have experienced a lot of things I would rather not have and would never wish on anyone, there are too many people I cannot imagine never having met and would not give away the honor of having known them for anything.
I don’t know that I will get to know Kevin as we didn’t end up having a conversation after our introduction and he left before the event was over. Despite this I still think that the introduction we shared did deserve the recognition of being a high-five worthy event. All of the big and little things that led to that unlikely moment had to line up perfectly. Everything that led to me attending that event doubled as he also had to find a way to attend that event. All of this without ever being aware of the others existence in conjunction with actually meeting each other being an event in our lives. It has made me look at meeting new people in a new way.
On top of this it has also made me look at my friendships with a new appreciation. Not only did I meet my friends, friends that had specific events never happened I would never have met. Friends that went through hell as I was going through hell to get to each other, without even realizing that we would ever be a part of each others lives, much less play such huge roles in them. Friends that I love so dearly that I have at times thanked them just for existing in the world. These friends that had I not gone through everything in my life exactly as I did and who did the same in their lives I might never have been aware of their existence.
I also thought of all the near misses I have had. The strangers who, while being a major part in their own lives and the lives of those in theirs, play little to no role in mine. People I might consider in a moment of fascination with how many different perspectives there are in the world. People who I notice that make me wonder if they notice me too. Am I so much in the background of their lives that I do not even appear in their memories. People who I notice as I pass them in the street and I wonder or imagine what their lives might be like. People who my life approaches but never intersects with. People who I might have been one event away from meeting.
All of these types of non interactions that remind me of looking inside lit windows as I walk down a street during the dusk or the night, when I can see into the lives of strangers as I pass them on the street. Seeing glimpses of the lives of people I will never meet. The feeling of being part of a whole that you can never know the completeness of. The feeling you get when you are with your friends, having a fun time, having a heart to heart, or helping one or the other of you through a hard time and you realize for a second how unlikely it was that you would even meet them.
The palpability of the infinite complexity of the universe that it can hold so many complex narratives that you or others will ever know. It can feel like a kind of magic, or at least it does to me. I sometimes feel like these are important moments. Truly intimate moments when you see the livelihood of another, despite never meeting, or notice how lucky you are to have met someone that you love. The living proof of the complexity of our existence, that is what my introduction with Kevin made me think about.
Definitely worthy of a high five in my book.
Llewellyn the Grey 