On Friday I met an old friend who I haven’t seen since my first high school year, when he dropped out and disappeared out of sight. The last rumor I heard about him was that he’d decided guys were more interesting than women, stepped out of the closet and was dating an author.

Now, 12-ish years later, it turns out everything was true. After dropping out of high school he got a job as a burger flipper at a gas station and discovered the internet and IRC. For a year his life consisted mainly of work, sleep and various IRC channels I would probably never join.

Funky.

At the age of 19 he left Norway and moved to New York, where he stayed for half a year and then moved on to Amsterdam before eventually relocating to Norway once again. Now we’ve lived in the same city for about 5 years without bumping into each other. It goes to show how large Oslo is, even though it’s the size of a small suburb compared to other capitals.

Come to think of it, we didn’t really hang out with the same crowd or the same part of the city and that probably contributed to the not-bumping-into-each-other-situation.

While there are people you never bump into, there are, for some reason, people you meet by accident all the time. I once dated a girl that I’ve met on the street or on the bus at least five times after we stopped dating. Every time she desperately tried to avoid seeing me. It was a bit awkward, I must admit.