I am not good at talking to strangers - I can handle myself in an airport with a ticket counter person, or at a hotel when someone wants to take my credit card and have me be on my way - but having real conversation with a stranger always immediately leads me to a place where I am counting off the ways in which my brain doesn't work like theirs, and how their approach isn't the same as mine, and before I know it I've created a checklist of reasons why I'm different than this person, and I'm counting the seconds until the interaction is over.
On late Thursday night, Alison and I were in line to catch a boat from a dinner show we saw to visit the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, and I veered out of the long line to check out a map of where we were, and essentially kill time in what would be a long, long wait.
As I was 15 feet away, I heard Alison talking to a stranger, and my first reaction was, "uh oh, this is a long long line..." I was immediately thinking that it'd be hard to escape the conversation when it took the turn it always seems to take, and I walked back over in the middle of the chat and braced myself - after all at least had something in common - we had both just seen the same dinner show.
The conversation completely blew me away - it was an older couple, the male being 65 or so and the female likely 10 or so years younger - both Disney fanatics (she more than he), both eager to kill the time with a good conversation. This newly married couple from Anoka, MN (The Self-Proclaimed Halloween Capitol of the World) were gracious enough to bless us with their familial charm for the next hour while we waited for the boat.
We exchanged phone numbers and emails, promised if we were ever in each other's towns we'd call each other up, and one thing in particular struck me. The invitation to come over and meet up for "supper" was such a unique and homey way to talk - the use of that word, "supper", struck such a chord in me. Not many people use that word, and I don't know if a stranger has ever offered me over for it before, and both Alison and I felt immediate warmth from these strangers, it was a really great chance coincidence.
I have no clue if I'll ever see them again - they are Disney Vacation Club members as Alison and I are, and given the frequency we both find ourselves in Disney World, there is a chance we'll meet up with them again - I've already sent a "nice to have met you" email and I'm already waiting for the reply. I hope we find ourselves together for supper at some point in the future, missing out on that opportunity would really be a waste of what was a fantastic hour of our lives.
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