chance encounters

Over the years, I have come to know a lot of people. I'm not bragging here, it's just a consequence of living in one place for most of your life. The interesting thing about all of these associations though is I rarely, if ever, encounter anybody I know during the course of my every day duties. I find this odd.

I'm sure some mathematician can explain this scientifically, postulating about our movements and the probabilities of an overlap at precisely the same time and place over a given geographic "orbit." From personal experience, I can attest the odds are very, very slim that this overlap will manifest itself.

I'm not complaining as I'm a very private person. I have been known to take extraordinary measures not to be seen when I do catch a glimpse of someone I know at the supermarket for example, abandoning my fully-laden cart and bolting for the hardware section where I pretend to be absorbed by the variety of available light bulbs for an inordinate amount of time until I feel the coast is clear.

I suppose because of the rarity of most encounters when they do transpire, I attribute them to fate or some greater law of convergence, ascribing perhaps a greater significance than is really warranted as to why I am seeing a particular person at a particular time. As an example, I recently ran into an old college crush a total of three times in three different places over the course of two weeks. I resorted to my typical avoidance behavior the first two times, but decided to act upon the third occurrence speculating that perhaps the greater law of convergence was at work and that it would persist until I responded. The circumstances were made even odder by the fact that I had just had an interaction with this woman's daughter only moments earlier, before making the connection. (This was at a conference) I approached this woman and we had a delightful talk, whereupon she suggested we get together for "coffee" or "lunch" sometime, giving me both her cell number and e-mail address. While the encounter was entertaining enough and conjured up fond memories of college, I of course, never contacted the woman again. The whole "three" sightings thing was just too spooky for me and my personal edict is to stay away from old college crushes. So take that, Convergence.

It deserves mention here; the oddest chance encounter I experienced happened in San Francisco several years ago. My wife, Joni, and I were on vacation there and we had just hopped onto a bus on Market Street; sitting two rows in front of us was a former classmate from Joni's Yale Law School days in Connecticut! The woman was riding to her office after having lunch down the street. I would have to speculate the mathematical probably of that chance meeting taking place was astronomical. Nevertheless, such chance encounters do occur.

I continue to be vigilant.