Small world

So Tuesday night I was meeting some people about a job, and halfway through a guy showed up late and sat down at the end of the table. I was sure I recognized this man, even though he's got a shaved head and I hadn't seen him in ten years. His voice was the same, and his smile, and I asked him his name. "Nate", he replies. "From Aurora, right?" "Yeah, how did you know?" I introduced myself, and of course we both slapped our heads at the odds. We'd been friends in high school - band, theater, lunch room. It was great to see him again, since I thought it unlikely I ever would due to the fact that I live so far from home.

Well, that wasn't the weirdest coincidence I've experienced.

My best friend freshman year at Purdue who lived across the hall from me was from Rhode Island, and essentially flunked out that year, so I never expected to see him again either. After I graduated in 1998, I moved back home and went to work at a riverboat casino in Lawrenceburg, one of two (now three) that had sprung up after I went off to college. As I was walking out the door from my interview, I ran into this guy walking in. And in fact, I didn't even register that it was him until he shook my hand and said hi. He had moved in with his mom in Lawrenceburg just a few days before.

The week after I moved down to the Dallas area, I went to set up a new bank account. I thought I recognized the man in front of me in line, and asked him his name. Sure enough, he was the cousin of one of my best friends in Ohio, and I had met him at that friend's wedding the summer before.

I'd been living in Dallas for a year when I came down to Austin for the first time on Easter weekend. My parents drove down to visit, and we wanted to see a little more of Texas. We picked a church to go to out of the phone book that Sunday, and at the service, a couple of rows behind us was a familiar face. Afterward, I caught up to him: it was the guy who was rooming with the friend mentioned above during our freshman year in the dorms. We kept in touch, first by email, then by weekend trips, and now he's my roommate.

Life is strange, and it really is a small world.