People.

I have an interesting story I’d like to share. I was coming back from work yesterday and I was tired and pretty irritated at people in general. Yeah, I get pretty anti-social after working at Jamba Juice because customer service kinda drags my whole tolerance level down. Anyways, I was up near 45^th and I was about to cross the street when some random guy smiled and waved. Now the first thing that goes through my head is panic, because I have a terrible memory and with my sporadic drinking episodes I tend to forget faces and names. So I go through about 5 seconds of a horrible, awful sinking sensation that I’ve met him before. Yet as hard as I try to remember, I’m pretty sure I never met him before. The second thing that crossed my mind is how in awe I was on how normal he looked. I mean going to UW, people wave at you all the time, yet they have kind of an eccentric look to them. Yet he was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, if he didn’t wave, I’m pretty sure I would have walked right by him with a grim expression of “I’m tired don’t fuck with me” type of mentality.

My point. Since I’ve started working at Jamba Juice, which was two months ago, I’ve met a lot of new people. In fact, it wasn’t just Jamba Juice, but this year in general. More specifically, my roommate Dana, who I met through Facebook ads. And what’s weird is how closely I’ve gotten to know so many people over such a short period of time. I mean, there are certain aspects of my life, I’m sure, that many of the new people I’ve met don’t actually know about, but it’s increasingly shrinking.

And let’s face it. For the majority of people who know me, I think I strike as being closed off. And that’s just what I thought was part of my personality. Yet it’s interesting to me how easily people are actually willing to be friendly with one another. You think, walking around UW campus that most people are just narrow mindedly focused on getting from point A to point B. But it’s crazy. If you stop, and I mean really stop, you’ll see how generally, other people like to meet other people. Just like at Jamba Juice, or the awkward crosswalk story.

It might be because I’m stuck in a perpetual cycle of making sure I don’t piss anyone off and how worried I am about what other people think, but to me, this blew my mind. You can call me a pussy I don’t care, but it's crazy. People really do just like meeting each other and being friendly. S0 wave to a stranger. Meet a new person. Who knows it could be your new best friend.