I've Met A Few Strangers In My Life

Some people never meet strangers; I wish I had that talent. No matter who they run into, no matter where, no matter what the circumstances, there is some sort of instant bond. It takes me a while to warm up, to get a conversation going, to feel at ease with another person. I probably spent my first five months in utero trying to get up the courage to inquire as to who was this big person on the other end of my umbilical cord. On the other hand, my brother, at that stage, had probably already made an invitation to take her out for coffee and play a hand of pinochle.

I've seen salesmen glad-hand me and act as if I were their newest best friend, their pal, the most intelligent and wonderful person on earth. That's not what I mean; they are meeting a stranger and the relationship ends when they hand me the sales receipt and start scanning for the next prey.

There is an art -- is it inborn? -- to meeting people as friends from Moment One. Not lifelong friends, of course, because you have just met them, but people with whom you can instantly identify with and can meet on some sort of common grounds, even if they are only coffee grounds.

I've also seen people who never met anyone as good as themselves. Pity. They appear to live in some rarefied atmosphere where, I suppose, there might not be enough air for everyone and the peons should stay down where they belong. Unfortunately, almost everyone is a peon and their circle of friends is remarkably small. They meet a lot of strangers and miss the great mix of life, of personalities. How can you enjoy humanity when your experience is so inbred? Reminds me of the Maggie and Jiggs comic strip; she likes the higher stratum and he escapes to Dinty Moore's bar to stay with his friends, the ordinary folks.
A friend has a school assignment to read the classic book, "The Stranger." I've got some who could write a book called, "The Friend." Ask them what a stranger is and they'd have to look it up in a dictionary.