A little bit of everything

Strangers

There's something so refreshing, yet comforting, about sharing a conversation with a stranger. How you can feel such a strong connection to someone that you have never met before in your life, who could be lying to you the whole time you are talking to each other, and who you might probably never see again. It's a funny thing how, sometimes, the best person to be yourself with, is a complete stranger. 

There's a girl. She walks into the airport in Cologne at 8:30 am on a January Wednesday morning. She drags her feet towards the controls, wishing that it was already 10 so that she could get on the plane and fall asleep. She's studying abroad and is flying home to visit her family and friends for a weekend before officially starting the new Semester. She walks confidently through the airport, as she flies often, only carrying a backpack, no suitcase; who needs so many clothes for just one weekend anyway. 

She is a normal girl. She has the life that a normal person lives. She's pretty but she doesn't stand out, she has a witty kind of humor and sarcasm is like a second language to her, as most people her age. She's smart but she's shy, so most times she can't show just how good she is, but she has a horrible temper and is the most outgoing person you'll ever meet if you get to know her. She's got her own worries and problems, her perks and her flaws, she knows how to go through life, she's as independent as one at 20 can be. She is loved by many and disliked by others. She has friends and enemies as well as experiences and heartbreaks that have taught her about life. She worries that she is never her true self around anyone. She worries that she is constantly hiding behind a mask. She worries that she lives too deep in her own thoughts to let anyone know her. When she gets to the gates she sits down and falls asleep.

As usual, she waits until every passenger has boarded the plane before getting in line. She knows that going in before everyone else just means waiting and standing longer, and she is patient, so she sits by herself thinking about her own things and waits to be the last one to enter. As soon as she boards the plane she heads to her seat and notices instantly that a man is sitting in her seat. 11A. Window. Not on her watch. She confidently struts to the row that she is supposed to be sitting in and addresses the man first in English, but soon switches to Spanish when she realizes that he is in fact from her homeland. 

In the seat 11A, her seat, there's a man, most likely in his mid 40s, wearing a hat and looking pretty confused. To his right, 11B, is a guy, probably 3 or 4 years older than the girl, looking like he wants to help and doesn't know how. Seat 11C is empty. They both stare at the girl waiting to see what she says and she quickly realizes that the isle seat is probably the man's. She politely asks whether the seat 11C belongs to the older man, to which she receives a positive answer. "That's okay then," she says "I can take this one, I don't mind." But to herself she's thinking that the window is blocked by the seat in front of theirs and that she doesn't need to make a scene in front of anyone if 11C is just as fine. 11B then says something funny to her regarding the lack of window that she had thought of before and she laughs. 

The guy pulls out his phone and checks something quickly, and in that moment she is able to tell that his background picture is one of him and a girl smiling widely at the camera and hugging. She supposes that she is his girlfriend and doesn't think about it any longer; that is, until he decides to start talking to her. The plane hasn't even started moving and he is already commenting about the bad weather and how empty the plane is.

At first she is surprised. She responds politely but doesn't really understand why he decided to start up a conversation with her. Does he like me? Does he want something from me? Is he weird? Is he afraid of flying or something and he needs someone to talk to to take his mind off things? He smells nice. He doesn't look like a creep. Suddenly she doesn't understand why she finds a stranger wanting to talk to her on an airplane such a ridiculous idea.  But we do, don't we? We want to be left alone and live our own life in peace, so why would you try to talk to someone who you might never see again? We think that anyone who is starting up random conversations on the street is most probably... a weirdo. How sad. 

The plane soon takes off and she is starting to realize that she enjoys talking to him. It's nice. Knowing that you can say whatever you want to say because this person does not have any previous reference as to what you might be like. You can just be yourself, you can pretend that you are somebody that you are not; or better yet, you can just be who you would like to be and don't normally have the courage to. So that's what she decides to do and she finds it enchanting. They spend the next two hours talking non stop, whether it's about themselves, their families, their hometowns, or even at some point, their love lives. And she thinks about how nice it is too let out everything that she thinks in a genuine way. She is so happy to say whatever she wants to say without being scared of being judged or having to worry about this person going off and telling their friends about what she said. She is calm.

She tells him about what she likes and what she doesn't like. She explains everything that she is afraid of and all things that she wants to do someday. She tells him about heartbreak, about lust, about love and about how much relationships suck and she doesn't care what he thinks she just cares that he's listening. And then he talks and he explains and they have things in common but they are so far apart from each other (figuratively speaking) that there is no need to try to identify  one's self with the other. He has his life and she has hers, and talking about it so openly and with so little importance to someone who has never seen her face before makes her feel like all of her problems are so small. Suddenly the world is much bigger than it was before, so many more chances of meeting people and moments like this repeating themselves appear and her problems become so very insignificant. Suddenly they are both small, and alone in the world, and whatever it is that was worrying them before, doesn't anymore. 

His eyes are blue; she hadn't noticed until about half an hour into the conversation. How did I miss that? She wonders how long she's been staring straight ahead. Are you scared of looking at him?  Are you scared that you might be enjoying this a little bit too much? He's funny. He's making her laugh. She wonders if in another life they might have met and been together. They feel like lost souls, reunited. But then again, she doesn't know this guy; she probably never will. So those thoughts are forced out of her head and she continues to listen about travelling the world and finding a job and falling in love. He has a girlfriend, but they share broken hearts from past relationships; they share lessons learned. This conversation is like nothing she's ever experienced before. She feels like she's known him forever and yet she doesn't even know his last name. 

He is fascinated by her as well, she can tell, and she loves knowing that this girl that she wishes to be is a good version of who she is. That this version of herself could be liked. This is who she wants to be. She wishes she could be like this with everyone; so open, so considerate, so selfless. But the world is big and the world is bad, and a girl has to watch out for herself or she will end up getting hurt. So she continues to rant and he continues to listen, and then he rants and she listens, and she has had the best conversation that she has shared with someone in a very long time. The connection is not sexual, there's no attraction,  she doesn't like him and he doesn't like her, they are both just fascinated with the situation; they don't want the conversation to stop. It's like their souls are connecting, their minds. Like old friends meeting after a long time of not seeing each other. It feels eternal, like this feeling will never end.

But then it's 12:30 and the plane lands in Madrid; it's time to get back to reality. They exchange phone numbers out of respect and politeness more than anything, but she doubts that they will ever see each other again. With technology nowadays, it's almost rude not to try to follow each other on Instagram, so they do that too. She doesn't like this though. She is sad by the thought of never seeing him again but at the same time.. Happy. This way this moment will stay between the two of them. It will be remembered. She doesn't need to keep contact with him through the stupid social media; it will all just end up losing the magic. This way, every time she gets on a plane she will think of the boy who make her feel like she was flying -- even though she really was. She won't be able to explain what she felt there to anyone else; and she doesn't want to. She wants it to belong to her and only her. Her own little magic trip.

As she waits for her taxi she thinks about the past few hours and smiles. She wonders how the whole situation could have been different if she had decided to be an asshole and make that man give her her seat. She wonders about how the whole thing wouldn't have happened if she had checked- in a mere hour before and gotten a completely different seat. She laughs. Fate is a funny thing. It gives a girl the most random experiences when she's least expecting them. She gets in the taxi hoping to share more conversations with nice strangers throughout her life. On the way home, she wonders if he left the airport as starstruck as her, or if to him, it was just an insignificant conversation with an insignificant stranger. These are the little moments that make life clearly remarkable.