Soon it will be 30 months after the big move to what people around here call The Most Beautiful City in the World. I honestly think the statement is quite egotistical, though I cannot deny it is a very beautiful metropolis, nor that I have come to meet new and old friends like probably never before. I have realized that whenever we are static in our hometowns -including myself- we generally get together with the same group of people. It is only when someone we truly care about is abroad and lets us know he or she will be visiting that we arrange otherwise. As life starts making us turn right or left we leave people behind, and sometimes we don’t understand why or when we stopped seeing someone we are or maybe were very fond of.
Like I said in my prior post, Getting Together with my Good Old Friends, as well as in the beginning of my text, this city has allowed me to meet with many people, but the truth is it has given the word ‘visitors’ a whole new dimension, and all of you who have come have brought something to our lives.
I have been introduced to former business colleagues and clients, as well as friends from when we were young. They have come from many corners of the globe, not only from Mexico -evidently, but also from other places from within Latin America and Europe, Africa, and even Asia. Colleagues with whom we might not have shared much more than a cordial salutation in the morning upon arriving to our desks have come and have shared with us a bit of their Parisian adventure. Friends have advised us with plenty of time in order for planning to take place and write the adventure together; they have also shared a bit of their vacation, and that pampers the heart quite a bit. Family has jumped into the airplane and have been dragged by our ecstasy to show them around every corner possible of the city. And last, but definitely not least, there have been those people who we have never met in person but with whom we share a friend, a family member, or a virtual connection via the Internet. And this is exactly the ones I shall highlight today.
It is now more and more common to electronically meet friends. I am sure my parents and grand parents would think my generation is literally nuts for planning coffee, drinks, or a touristic visit with someone you have actually never met before. And to an extent it sounds a bit insane, but then again, it has become a new way of meeting people. Hasn’t it?
We started following each other via Twitter. Acquaintance of an acquaintance of mine who I met also through someone else… the circle of life. She used to live in Sceaux, where she was studying her Master’s Degree, and which is located just outside Paris. Not many people know this place, so my attention was called upon immediately when she recognized my photograph from the local park. Months passed and we exchanged brief messages through the social network. She advised having plans to come visit and start working on her Ph.D. It was a splendid opportunity to meet and chat. Face to face and in the same time zone. I thought it sounded like a good plan.
We met for breakfast at a very Parisian tea house right across from the Tuileries. I arrived a couple of minutes after she did. We clicked. We couldn’t stop talking. Nothing in common per se, but everything in parallel that made us even more curious to get to know each other. We met several times during her visit. We had never met before, and today I have a whole story with her. She’s now part of my dear friends. Is that crazy or should we have met before?
