origins

“how do you guys know each other?”

i’ve been hearing this question a lot lately, as my world gets smaller and my friends from various groups around the city and from all over the world start hanging out or having dinner together. it’s always a pleasant feeling to actually take a moment to think about how our friendships had started out in the first place and find an unusual story buried under all the years (or months or days) that we’ve known (or known of) each other.

“she was my best friend’s ex-girlfriend.”

“she sat in my creative writing class and became my teacher the next semester.”

“he was famous and i had no idea who he was.”

“he stalked me on my blog.”

“he went out with my sister.”

“i dumped him and he became my friend.”

“she took me to the infirmary when i had cramps in math class.”

“my mom made me become his friend.”

“he used to be a bad boy.”

“we got stuck in a car with nine other people everyday for a year.”

“i used to be scared of her until i found out that she wasn’t so scary at all.”

“i used to avoid him in high school.”

“i gave him a ride home and now he owes me his life.”

“Scared me to death when he suddenly yelled, ‘TOLKIEN!’ while i was reading the silmarillion at the freshman enrollment.”

“talked to him for four hours before asking his name.”

“we met in a line to the Two Towers premiere and i had a Lenore comic with me at that time.”

“our teacher tried to set us up.”

“i found the two of them sitting in the dark, talking about theology and so joined them.”

“i asked him, ‘why so glum, chum?’ and he took it upon himself to make me his chum ever since.”

of course, there are the usual stories of being friends because our parents are friends, we were classmates in high school, we had the same college org, went to the same church– but it doesn’t mean that the stories are less interesting. in whatever circumstances that we had met, i’m glad that we’re friends now. and it’s awesome to count the years, months, weeks, and days and remember the circumstances that led us to this question since the first time we met.