Single serving: Passing encounters with strangers.

I'm moving back to Baltimore this weekend, which is relevant only insofar as I have movers.

I find it incredibly validating as a human being when you meet someone and can connect with them even if it's just for a few hours. The guy who came to move me is Israeli and, as such, has that aura of impossible cool that all the young men in Israel seem to have. We got on well to begin with...he's a funny guy and we shared a bit about our lives...but when he found out that I'd spent a holiday in Israel, that was it for our "friendship." He got to talk to someone who had been there about his homeland and his experience growing up there and I got to learn some new things from a really interesting guy and express my appreciation for Israel as a tourist destination to someone who was interested to hear it.

He will not be the one to drop my stuff off when I move in down there, so the likelihood of ever crossing paths with him again is very slim. But for a few hours today, we each had an interesting new friend.

Honestly, experiences like this, the ability to connect so well with a complete stranger with no ulterior motives, are what, to me, make life most worth living. And that little bit of philosophy explains how I ended up moving to Texas on a dare and how The Aussie came to stay and how a near stranger with whom I'd shared lunch almost four months earlier ended up coming on holiday to Hungary with me, Beks and a couple of her friends.