the fatalistic implications of wrong numbers
two separate people called me with wrong numbers today. wrong numbers are such missed opportunities and i hate myself for getting perturbed by them. the person on the other line could be anyone; anyone at all. i don't think enough people realize that.
i haven't thought about it much lately, but once i actually started a conversation with a man who repeatedly called me looking for someone else. sure it was initially an annoyance to be called by a stranger at all hours of the day. the ring comes followed by the excitement that someone actually wants to talk to you then the disappointment of rejection. this one man called my phone so often looking for his friend mark that we started talking to each other. there is no doubt that it took a certain amount of adjustment to talk to a stranger, but in the end, it worked out. after about three calls i started asking him how he was doing and stopped caring that he didn't want to talk to me. our conversations proceeded for about a month. the relationship was either commensalistic or symbiotic, i never really thought about it until today.
even though we haven't spoken in over a year, there is still an entry in my cell phone directory labeled "guy for mark". sure it wasn't really important, sure it wasn't really stable, but it sure was interesting for the time it lasted.
if i believed in fate, i would make some sort of argument that supported the belief that the random stranger on the other line could be a future best friend and that there wasn't really any happenstance about the call, just the intervention of some all-knowing diety. maybe if i'd given somebody else a chance today i'd have a new best friend or a wife or just a random acquaintance. i guess none of that would matter to me, as long as i had just one more random entry in my cell phone directory.
i haven't thought about it much lately, but once i actually started a conversation with a man who repeatedly called me looking for someone else. sure it was initially an annoyance to be called by a stranger at all hours of the day. the ring comes followed by the excitement that someone actually wants to talk to you then the disappointment of rejection. this one man called my phone so often looking for his friend mark that we started talking to each other. there is no doubt that it took a certain amount of adjustment to talk to a stranger, but in the end, it worked out. after about three calls i started asking him how he was doing and stopped caring that he didn't want to talk to me. our conversations proceeded for about a month. the relationship was either commensalistic or symbiotic, i never really thought about it until today.
even though we haven't spoken in over a year, there is still an entry in my cell phone directory labeled "guy for mark". sure it wasn't really important, sure it wasn't really stable, but it sure was interesting for the time it lasted.
if i believed in fate, i would make some sort of argument that supported the belief that the random stranger on the other line could be a future best friend and that there wasn't really any happenstance about the call, just the intervention of some all-knowing diety. maybe if i'd given somebody else a chance today i'd have a new best friend or a wife or just a random acquaintance. i guess none of that would matter to me, as long as i had just one more random entry in my cell phone directory.