We Should Be Friends

There are a few people whose blogs I read on a regular basis. One of these people is a person I met at music camp who has probably never thought of me since the last day she saw me this past summer. And I read her blog at least once a week. I happened upon it somehow - I don't remember how - and I really enjoy reading it. But, I don't really know her. We never even talked more than two or three times at music camp. And once we both rode in the backseat of the same car on our way to a concert at Marlboro. Even at music camp, before I ever read her blog, I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to be friends. She was funny and intelligent and articulate and there was just something engaging about her and I just knew somehow that we would get along so splendidly if only she knew it too and we could ever really talk, even just once. But we never did, of course. And she always had a way of coming across a little bit sarcastic and a little bit aloof. (Which is another reason I know we'd get along smashingly; I've been told numerous times that I can be exactly the same way, particularly in new or unfamiliar environments.) So I read her blog and think how funny she is and sometimes I just feel as if I understand her - and she probably doesn't remember my name. Life is funny sometimes. We're both a part of the same great story... and it's one of those stories where the lives of the characters are intertwined throughout the pages even though they don't know it. You know, the stories where Hannah glimpses Rachel, and even before Hannah knows Rachel, you as the reader know Rachel from previous chapters and recognize her through Hannah's eyes. And there's the exhilaration of wondering when and how their lives will intersect and what will happen. I keep wondering if my life will intersect with this girl's life again. She's in Boston. I'm right outside of Boston. We study with the same violin teacher. We both blog on Blogger. I read her blog and I wish I was part of her world. I wish I knew the people she talks about and experienced the situations she describes. I'd like to meet her sister and her roommate and see her dorm room and listen to music with her and laugh with her and talk with her and, well... she's lonely sometimes, I'm lonely sometimes... we should be friends. But we aren't. We're both part of the same history, and there's quite a good chance that we'll glimpse each other again at some point in the future, and maybe she'll recognize me or maybe she won't. Life is a strange thing, indeed. (Or perhaps the more probable conclusion is just that I am strange, in a stalker sort of way. heh.)

I just re-read this and wondered if you, the reader, will interpret this as very odd. But come on, you know you've felt this way before about someone. And it doesn't have to be a person of the opposite gender or a crush or an obsession. That's not the sort of thing I'm talking about at all! You see some person at a distance and you know that you could be the best of friends, except that you don't really know each other and you don't quite know how to begin.