Chance meetings in an anonymous city

Posted in: Drivel

There's a urban lore that in London people tend not to bump into each other by accident. In the kind of city that's 30+miles across and has over 7million people it's not hard to see where this idea comes from.

A few months ago I started recognising people I knew, quite randomly from travels in and around London. Sometimes in obvious transport nexuses, other times in far off parts. I thought this was an anomaly, but it kept happening, more and more frequently. I recently wondered, jokingly, when I might meet someone each day for seven days straight. Now I don't think it's a joke. I met three people in one day on Saturday, including a very cool guy (downstairs in a reserved area in a pub in Notting Hill Gate, while waiting for friends) from Bristol I was remotely acquainted with 13 years ago. Quite how my neuro-circuitry pulled off that recognition move is beyond me. But lord knows, I'm grateful for it.

Tonight, walking past a bar in Farringdon—an area I essentially don't frequent—I spotted a friend giving someone a massage. Literally twenty minutes before that I bumped into a friend from university. Yesterday in Bethnal Green I met a guy I have only ever seen once a year ago. Couple of weeks ago in Tooting, Tooting f'chrissakes, I spotted a guy I sort of know through a social circle on the Tube going the same direction and we swapped numbers. And so on.

London doesn't have to be an anonymous city.

Posted by Paul Makepeace at January 21, 2005 03:49 | TrackBack