The Accidental Date.

I was being hip and hanging out at a local coffee shop (I was actually hoping to casually-on-purpose run into this guy I think I like), when I ran into a guy I went to high school with.

We had mutual friends in high school, but weren’t friends. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’d spoken to him. We’d never had anything that could (even generously) be described as a conversation. But we’re “friends” on FB, which gives me a false sense of intimacy with people I don’t really know or have had contact with for at least ten years. So when I saw him sitting at a table when I was on my way to the bathroom, I decided to say hi. Mistakenly thinking that it would be a sort of awkward, "hi, how's it going" and then I'd go back to my table.

He immediately invited me to sit down at his table with him, and started talking - as though we were long lost best friends who had a ton to catch up on. He talked, pretty much non-stop, for the next two hours. He talked so much, he got parched and had to excuse himself to get a drink.

It started off with fairly normal (or what would be normal if we had ever known anything about each other) chitchat about what we’re both up to these days. Except we don't know anything about each other. Which became immediately clear, and led to a discussion of what we had been up to before “these days.” More precisely, the highlights of the last ten years – since we graduated from high school. (Where, as I mentioned above, we didn’t know anything about each other either).

This segued into a discussion of office politics, careers, education – the pros and cons of an extended education (me) vs. work experience (him) – and college experiences, neighborhood preferences, food preferences, musings about relationships and the experience of living with a significant other, his band, the nature of honesty, feelings about adulthood, contemplations on the struggle of maintaining a feeling of genuineness in the face of external sources, communication, weddings, and people we both knew in high school.

He made a point of making it clear that he was not in a relationship. At which point, it dawned on me that this was no longer just a friendly, catch-up-with-a-high-school-acquaintance encounter. My stopping by the table to say hi had accidently developed into a date. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. It definitely had its upside: he’s cute, liberal, interesting, contemplative, funny, smart, and laid back. Plus, the fact that we weren’t really on a date made it an extremely low-pressure situation. Neither of us had gone into the conversation with any expectations, so the flow was natural and comfortable.

When I finally got up to leave, he wanted to know which coffee shops I go to regularly. And told me where he goes regularly. I suspect I’ll probably have another accidental date with him, should I continue to be hip and go to coffee shops. Which might be okay.