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Sometimes I Fall in Love with Strangers From Afar
When will my imagination translate over to reality?
Have you ever looked across a room and locked eyes with someone completely new to you? Maybe you share a smile or a nod, and then you go back to your business, the exchange just a flitting fragment of your day.
I’ve had these clandestine moments — ones that, if I might have taken a step forward in the other person’s direction, might have meant friendship and camaraderie and maybe something more. I imagine these happenstances offer a fork in the road; there are two paths, and you take one — only for the other option to vanish or become an alternate reality you’ll never be privy to.
In my alternate realities, I’m sure I talked more to that cute guy at work. Maybe I became friends with that shy coworker. Perhaps I might even have had different opportunities for work or even my personal life. It’s hard to say.
But the one thing that stays is this: I have a tendency to romanticize the “what-if” nature of such almost-meetings.
Take, for the instance, the time when I had to go to the IT department at my workplace. A cute guy acted as the would-be receptionist, and he kept trying to get a conversation between us going. I, however, being nervous (first day jitters) and socially…
