First Meetings

This is a true story. It all happened somewhere in yesterday...

    I've been wondering a lot lately how friends are made. I know a lot of people, but I can't really remember how I met all of them. Are first meetings really that important? I remember some of them, the important ones. Otherwise, I just kind of fell into friendship with people. I guess we do make a lot of impressions with our first meetings of people, but I don't know how important they really are. I have friends who didn't really like me the first time they met me, but now we're really good friends. Why does everyone think first impressions are so important? Maybe some are.

    I remember my first meeting with my friend Caitlin. It's probably one of the ones I remember best. We were in grade six, about twelve or so. We were waiting for our bus out front of the high school and a couple of my classmates were giving me a hard time about something (I can't remember what). I decided to do the logical thing and walk away. I went and sat on a curb and started reading my book. I was still pretty upset, but reading always made me feel better. I remember it was the third Harry Potter book that I was reading. I didn't know it, but Caitlin had seen what had caused me to walk away from my classmates. So she walked over to where I was sitting, sat down beside me and said, "Hey, what are you reading?". This was the beginning of our friendship. I don't know why I remember this first meeting so well. I guess it's just something that's important to me.

    Another great first meeting was when I met Gen. It was at Caitlin's birthday party one year. Caitlin and Gen were running up and down the street screaming "Honk if you like Peter Pan" to passing cars. When they screamed it at my mom's car then we drove into the driveway, they thought that we were angry at them, so they went running towards the front door. They stopped running once they realized it was me. Needless to say, I immediately joined them in their yelling. It was a lot of fun and that's probably the only part of that party I remember.

    My introduction to my boyfriend was a series of meetings. The first time I met him was before school while I was waiting for my bus in front of his middle school. He was friends with Gen and she said hi to him and introduced me. The next time I met him was months later. He and Gen had gone for a bike ride that morning and I came to hang out with them shortly after that. We hung out for a while at Gen's house before her parents came home and told her we had to leave because she had chores to do. Steve lived up Promontory at the time (a big hill) and didn't feel like walking/biking up it that soon after his bike ride so I invited him to my place to hang out. When I got there, my parents wanted me to clean the kitchen. I told Steve he could just sit there and hang out while I did it, because we could still talk while I cleaned. He, however, didn't like the idea of me just cleaning by myself while he just sat there so he started to help. The first time he met my step-dad was when he was sweeping our floor. After that, we hung out a lot. By a lot I mean everyday. Then I went camping with my family and he and our friend Tyson came up to visit for the day. We went swimming and I think that was the day I really fell for Steve. It was one of the best days ever.    

    Other meetings I've had were more subtle. People I meet at work tend to get the "you work with me, so now I'm talking to you" thing. This is pretty much where I just start talking to the person, forget to introduce myself and we end up as friends anyways. Jaimie likes to say that I became her friend by just telling her that we're friends now and she couldn't argue with it. Most of my newest friends got that kind of introduction to me. I just acted like myself and hoped they would like me. Seemed to work well enough.

    I guess some first meetings are more important than others. With some of my friends, it really doesn't matter how I met them, just that we did meet at some point. Others, that first meeting meant a lot to everyone. When I think about it, the ones I remember the most were very connected. If Caitlin had never come over to talk to me that day, I never would have met her, Gen or Steve. I also never would have met a lot of my other friends that I know now. The most important meetings to me, lead to great things.

    Your assignment for today is to try to remember the first time you met some of your friends. You don't have to write it down. Just remember it.

-Ciao!