Gabriel and Ross

Int. A supermarket, at the UHT Milk section. Afternoon.

MONIQUE is crouched to the floor, reading the back to soy milk labels, trying in vain to find a soy milk that doesn't have added sugar. Presently MONIQUE becomes aware of two people talking behind her. The two people have the following conversation.

VOICE 1 (very Australian, bogan voice)
Doesn't this milk last for ages? Like years?

Voice 2. (Also very Australian, but with a weaker, reedy quality.)
Nah, only if you don't open it.

Voice 1.
Aw, so like, if you open it, you have to drink it quick like normal milk.

Voice 2.
Yeah, you gotta drink it within 3 days, like normal milk bro.

Voice 1.
Nah, are you sure? Like I thought it lasted for ages, like months or some'hin'

Voice 2.
Nah, it's like normal if it's open, you gotta keep it in the fridge and drink it.

Voice 1. (To MONIQUE)
Excuse me...

MONIQUE turns around.

Two men in suits stand there. The first voice is that of ROSS. The second is of GABRIEL. ROSS is a stocky man, dark greased back hair. GABRIEL is thinner, with rapidly receding hair, glasses, and shoulders that seem to be constantly drawing up towards with ears, making his neck virtually disappear. The men introduce themselves and shake MONIQUE's hand.

ROSS
You seem to know about this milk, do you have to drink it quick after ya'open it?

MONIQUE
Yes, once you've opened it becomes like normal milk, it's only before you open it that it last for (she checks the used-by date) yeah, ages; this goes off in December next year.

GABRIEL
See I told you.

This sentiment and the comprehension of the facts goes on for a little while.

ROSS
You see the thing is, we sometimes need milk at our place of work – sometimes clients want milk, but most of the time we don't use a lot and it goes off and we have to throw it out.

MONIQUE
You could use powdered milk perhaps?

ROSS
Oh yeah, how does that work?

MONIQUE explain the ins and outs of powdered milk.

MONIQUE
Or (pointing out the 250ml individually packaged milks) you could perhaps just get those.

ROSS
Oh yeah, hey that's great. You know your really smart

GABRIEL
Oh yeah, you're one of the nicest people I've met!!

ROSS
What do you do?

MONIQUE
I'm just a student

ROSS asks what MONIQUE is studying, GABRIEL nods along in agreement.

ROSS
Well we work at the advertising agency around the corner (he digs around in his wallet, and produces a card)
If you ever need work experience, give's a call.

GABRIEL
Do you want my card too?

MONIQUE (Unsure)
Sure.

ROSS
Nice meeting you MONIQUE, we will let you get on with your day

GABRIEL
You are just so nice, really, have a lovely day. God bless you, you're so nice. Do you believe in God?

MONIQUE (internal groan)
No.

GABRIEL
Oh! Can I talk to you about God? Maybe over a coffee?

MONIQUE
No, thank you.

GABRIEL
But we all need God. Jesus can really improve your life.

MONIQUE
Thank you but I have my own beliefs

GABRIEL
And what do you believe?

MONIQUE (Thinking on her feet)
That one should treat others as they want to be treated

GABRIEL
That's what Jesus says! Are you sure I can't tell you about God

MONIQUE
Yes, thank you, I can think those things without the Jesus part

GABRIEL
Ok, well, if you change your mind, you have my card.

MONIQUE
Thanks.

MONIQUE turns back to the milk and the two men walk away.

An Ode to Nic (558)

Nic (558) worked on the corner of Lonsdale and Elizabeth on the weekends; Hardware lane and Lygon street during the week. About four weeks before he died; and overdose, they think, he left Melbourne to work on a fishing trawler in the Northern Territory, or somethings like that.

Working around the Big Issue office, I saw him most mornings. He'd come in for a coffee and a cigarette with some others who were around. Then he'd buy some magazine to go out and sell. He'd often be listening to the radio, and he'd always say "It's Nic 558.com.au (558 was his Vendor number) when he called on the phone.
I only really knew him in such ephemeral ways until I really met him, and made a connexion with him one winter day last year. 

I worked Saturday mornings, and would often go for walks around the city to see where the Vendors were working and see how they were going. Nic was working his usual pitch, and I said hello. Suddenly he was asking me about myself, and through this process, he began to tell me about his partner, Tania.

He spoke of her fondly, saying she used to play tennis, but she gave away doing it professionally to go back to university. He also told me, as I said I wanted to write, that she had also been a journalist before she started her Phd. I don't remember what he said she was writing on for her Phd., but I remember, him telling me, even toned, "The day before she handed in her Thesis, she had a brain aneurysm, and died." It was one of the most profound moments I had experienced, as he continued on, encouraging me to keep writing; "Just write a little something everyday."

Vale Nic, Vale.

Angie

I often go down to The Gem. A bar in Collingwood, it's tucked away on Wellington street, away from the more popular joints, The Tote, The Rochester, The Birmingham.
It's decor is ridiculous and charming. Elvis adorns the walls in various forms; a rug, a framed copy of TV week, a watermarked mirror, a photograph from is 1968 comeback tour.

The same band has played Sunday nights for the last 4 months. Small groups of dedicated followers of the simple, rockabilly band come almost every week. As one a part of one of those groups, I have slowly met a few of the other devotees, recognising them and saying hollow the weeks that I go.
Angie was relatively new to the weekly ritual. I'd only seen her since January or so. Tonight I sat beside her at the bar. She'd already met another friend of mine - Ezbon, who was a much more dedicated attendee than myself. Ezbon had been the impetus to myself and many of our friends attending in the first place.

In her early fifties at a guess, and very well kept and well dressed, Angie leaned over and ask,
"I'm sorry, I don't remember your name."
That broke the ice, and as she tapped her foot along to the music, we passed banter about the evening back and forth.

One moment struck me, was when she looked over after a quip from the Double-bassist about Mother's day.
She laughed. "He's been going on about mother's day all weekend! I'm not a mother! I was almost once. My son would have been thirty-nine if he has lived."
Then she just went back to dancing in her seat, cat-calling the lead guitarist.
Amazing.

Maria

The room pulsed with the collective heart of a Friday night. I could barely hear Maria over the noise or the bar, glasses clinking, people talking, shoes shuffling, coat cast aside, laughter, instruments being tuned for the next band.
Maria was a friend of a friend of mine, Who I had bumped into that night at random. She was more interested in talking to him than to me. She suggested they go to a house party after the bar, and I don't remember how, but I heard mention of VCA.
Steeled by beer and atmosphere, I bullishly tried to assert myself in the conversation.
"What do you do at VCA?" I asked.
"Music" Maria said.
And that was that.

Nurse Claire

Early morning fasting-blood tests
Cast a vague tissue-paper
Feeling over the day, standing
On the porch of the nicely
Disguised clinic - a Terrace
On a street in Brunswick.
She opens the door, 8am.
I'm first in the cold lab,
Take off my coat, she takes
My form. Now she has
My name, written next to
Signatures, abbreviations and
Boxes for ticking.
I don't know hers, and she
Never says, yet I think
Of her as Claire, through
The rest of the moment,
Sitting in the chair, needle
Sucking earnestly blood from
My arm. 
Claire is Gentle, efficient.
We talk of TV awards and
Police Shootings, the radio news
Colouring our conversation.
Then the question - what are you?
A Student, of what you ask -
And I say, and I say 'to learn'.
I'm rare, she said, and elaborates -
'My problem is,
That I want to do everything'.
She goes back to study,
Every now and then.
Stuck full of holes,
Both arms pricked and taped
Back together, the goodbye
Is so between Nurse Claire,
And I, the student.
Thank you, good day
And good luck.

Adrian and Christian

Murky night with
An awkward date -
Two brothers are friends
Of the one I am with,
Adrian has tattoos that
They speak about
But don't include
Me in the
Conversation, so I
Sip my Gin
And become accused
Of being quiet
By Christian, who
Has a moustache that
Matches his curly hair
And his
Beige sports coat, and
I feel like I'm the younger
Out of all the
Company I'm keeping this night.
Then we go dancing,
And there is no need
For speaking,
But I still feel alone,
Even though I then meet
Tedo, and Laura and Harry.

Phillip, Nick

Bars are not often the best place to meet people, I have found.
I was out with a friend, in the city, rain falling outside.
The band played pop covers to an adoring crowd - mostly friends who'd come in support.
I was introduced to Phillip - he was in the band - but I learned more about Phillip from Nick.
Nick was drunk and enthusiastic, he introduced himself when he sat down next to me, waiting for a drink to come back for him from the bar. He indicated Phillip after both Nick and I, and Phillip and I had exchanged names. Phillip began to pack up the band gear.
"He's just so amazing." Nick began.
I nodded.
"He plays violin," he began to number things off on his fingers. "Guitar, piano, and he can sing," his voice when up a notch. "And he's Austrian, and he can speak French, and Dutch and German."
Nick flailed his arms in admiration.
"I want his babies."

On Awkward Meetings

Waiting outside the class roo, our eyes met briefly
Then they shifts to our respective feet
We've been sitting in the same class on and off now for 8 weeks
He speaks first, referring to the room change for the class
"Hope we have the right room"
"Yeah, I think we do, there are some other guys"
I indicated other people from the class sitting behind the escalators.
"I'm about to do a talk on Marx..." He started vaguely.
"Yeah, it was a good reading."
"Yeah, I enjoyed it."
The noise of the people coming down the hall coloured the silence.
"You don't come to this class very often"
"No,"
(He had a very enthusiastic way of speaking: He was animated, good humour but he almost spat out his words)
"This have been a bit crazy this semester."
His voice then dropped and I missed the first few words of his next sentence.
"...died, then my girlfriend left to go overseas for four months, and then I lost my job, I might get to do the readings but I can't get to the classes."
I smiled because I didn't know what else to do.
"Yeah, I understand."

On being female and trying to meet people.

He slid his hand self-consciously through his greased fetlock and in the same movement, placed the hand strategically on the wall next to us. I was already leading against the wall, so his arm boxed me in. He smiled and continued to talk about the state of newspaper journalism.

This is the moment I had dreaded. I'd begun a conversation with his person because we were both waiting in the toilet line at a house party. It appeared now, as I read his outrageous body language, that he thought that I had further designs on the inception of my conversation with him. 

This instance was not isolated, it has happened to many a time, where I have had to excuse myself from the connect because it seemed to be assumed that because I was of the opposite sex, and had commenced a conversation, that I wanted something...more.

Anna

She was blonde, sitting outside at the party with a circle of others i didn't know.
The theme of the party was 'Turning Japanese', but she hadn't dressed up at all. 
I was dressed as a Cheery Blossom tree, with a dress I had adorned with painstakingly handmade flowers. Anna, wine glass in hand, the hour getting fast towards midnight, pointed at me with a spare finger.
"You're costume is great!"
"Thanks," I replied.
"What are you supposed to be?"
"A Cherry Blossom tree, it's peak flowering season over there at the moment." I volunteered.
Anna made various noises of understanding. 
"Cool."
She took a sip of wine and the silence between us began to open up again. This is the moment where a conversation can be left hanging as a fragment never to be realised, or it can be built upon - that initial ice-breaking and become something else, for good or ill.
"So how do you fit in here?" I asked.
"I know Alistair."
"Ok,"
"Yeah. You?"
"I know Thea and Simonne."
"Oh yeah, I don't know them."
I was beginning to realise that I was staring down a dead end.
"What do you do with yourself," I tried one more time.
"Aw, I study like radiology - so like Xrays and stuff."
"Ok, that's interesting."
"It's alright."
I looked around, then I excused myself.
"Sorry I just need to go to the loo."

Café Civilisation

Rob, he has large skim café latte. He wife works in lingerie. 

Jason, he's a bookie at Flemington Racecourse. He never comes in wearing the same pair of sunglasses. He has a long macchiato, sometimes a short macchiato, depending on how much time he has to spare.

Sharon, She's a teachers aid. Small and weathered, with a perpetual tan, she has a large cappuccino with takeaway, because she is always going somewhere or doing something. If you ask her how she is, she will always answer with "busy", before elaborating. 

Trent, he has a green tea because it's more healthy. Sometimes he has a espresso, usually when he's with other men.

Barry, he meets with his daughter and granddaughter, Chelsea. Both he and his daughter have a skim café latte. He discribes himself as a refugee from Cafe Lomar, which closed down recently.

Matilda

"I'm trying to get a gig, and I think I have coz Tyron's the man two know you know, and he's a graphic designer as well so you know, fliers and stuff too, It'll be great, I can't wait coz I'm so bored at the moment, I haven't been teaching for a while now coz I just needed a break: I'm a piano teacher, yeah, I usually teach little kids and sometime half the trouble is just keeping there attention on things - but I know it's really important because I wish my parents had made me practice more when I was a kid, you know and so I have to keep them on task, I sometime have to use puppets for really little one's, you know, the five year olds 'mr cockatoo says play C', but you know, you do your best, like I try to engage them a bit more than just going through the book - some teachers just go through the book, but I go: what's your footy team, ok Collingwood, well then let's learn the Collingwood theme song."

"But yeah, I couldn't stand to hear the same mistakes played over again so I'm taking a break from teaching although it's really good money cash in hand. I'm going to start back at Ava's school after a bit, I'm playing my own music now and it's really good, and Ava's getting really good now too, she's got nimble little fingers and she's playing her blues progressions now really fast and I said, 'right do that, and then eight more times.' You gotta practice or you loose focus, like if you see that your getting better you wanna keep going, yeah, she's getting really good, but like, Ava met her dad the other day and she's been a bit regressive since, like she was in the fetal position the night after but she getting a bit better now. I'm just try to separate how I feel about him from her experience of it, you know".

Matilda coughed and took a drag on her cigarette. Finding it had gone out, she lit it again, clearing her throat.

"I shouldn't be smoking, I'm had the flu or something, it's just all the stress I've been under, coz of Ava meeting her dad and that. He bought her like 40 presents and stuff, but she was so scared, she hid behind me for ages when he first came in, but like, he was really good about it you know, well, with her you know, I've got to let my feelings go and just do it for her, I can tell my psychologist what I think about me later you know, but it was really hard to put it aside you know, but yeah, it's been a bit full on at the moment."

Kathleen

'Hi Monique, I'm Kathleen, I'll be seeing you today.'

Spoken with those softly-softly spifer web-words of someone trying ever so hard to be unconfronting. 

I'm not sure how the professionals do it, but they must train their voices; take classes to make their voices form the words differently. They seem to weigh less in the air, how feathers glide over the skin so breifly like they were never there. 

"Ok, great, it's good to meet you." I said, my words so much less subtle as I try to hide the sound of her words grating against my mind with their emblemished senstivity. Meek like knives.

The room Kathleen lead me into was airless, and by a great leap of progress in design, the windows don't open.

The chairs were fake blue suede; boxing and square. 

After explainantions of legal matters and the signing of concent, Kathleen asked the envitable,

"So tell me why you have come to see a psychologist - what sort of problems are you wanting to discuss here."

I cringed at the word 'problem'. Perhaps they were not problems at all, perhaps they were just perspective that I wished to change, habits that need guiding, thoughts that needed tidying. Problems sounds so grave. Problems sounds like that needed solutions, and solutions are a lot like conclusions-find-the-answer-and-put-it-in-a-box-move-on-it's-fixed-now. I don't see the  world like that. I just want to go on a journey inside myself and take Kathleen with me, so that we could both try to understand myself a little better.

Within five  minute of me explaining, in tangents and wall-of-words styling, I knew it was not I who was meeting Kathleen, but she who was meeting me. 

Tania

I didn’t like her. The moment the glass doors pressed quietly shut behind me with a faint pneumatic hiss, the mood changed. I was now the patient, and I was being lead down the hall to room 401. 

Offered a seat, (or was I instructed?) I sat looking down into the pits of the university. I pondered a moment, as I often did, of the lives of others; all those thoughts inside the seemly tiny heads that traversed the ground like rain on a window.

"So, Monique, tell me why you want to see a psychologist - we just need some details so we can better match you with someone." Tania sat opposite me, pen poised over a yellow sheet of paper, ready to take notes about my 'situation'. 

I felt like a multiple choice quiz as she prompted responses from me. 

"I'm here because my friends think I have an eating disorder."

"Well, you need to be here for you, and I think that you wouldn't have come it if was just for your friends. Why do they say you have an eating disorder?"

I went on to describe some of behaviours I'd developed, suddenly succumbing to frustrated tears. The tears were not mine - they were involuntary and I tried to explain it to Tania, but she just pushed the tissue box towards me and said with a smile, 

"It' OK, it's good to get things out."

Duncan's sad side.

(This is a story about meeting other 'sides' of people. All people are dynamic creatures, they are in constant flux - the have many facets to 'meet'.)

Steam rose between us from the urn in the kitchen. Duncan leaning on the bench right beside it. People came in and clanked through cupboards looking for things. They didn't disturb us though. I stood right beside him and the steam seemed to cast us invisible in a wet, warm bubble.

The wedding reception continuing outside of the room. Duncan's hand played with the beginnings of a beard along his jaw line. I hadn't met this side of him, although, I had guessed at it's existence.

He told me great pause, and considered gesture, a great analogy of his mood.

“You know those moments in animal documentaries when the antelope gets chased by the lion?”

I nodded and he went on.

“The lions don't usually catch the antelope, they just wait until it can't be bothered anymore, where it becomes so tired by the chase that it can't be bothered living. It just stops and waits to be killed. Then the lions catch up. I feel like that. I feel like that moment were the antelope just gives up. I want to just give up.”

Marty

You spoke about facts. Those silly ones that everyone has a few of. You gave my friend your jacket and you called me hipster. "A BA? You look like you do a BA". We had to talk loudly over the music and seemed to dislike the dancing crowd as much as I did.

Marty is the first person I feel that I have really 'met' in a long time. I don't even know how we got started talking. Maybe because you spoke to the host, who was wasted didn't have any shoes on. I'd only met her a few times and she was going to take me on a tour of the house. That's when you chimed in with you fact about the moon being 400 times smaller than the sun, but the sun was coincidentally 400 times further away. So the result of that celestial phenomenon was that when there was a solar eclipse, the moon fit perfectly over the sun.

I talked to you most of the time I was there, some two hours. That's why I feel like I met you, because we got past those first steps of conversation, the foundations of orientating ourselves in each other, plotting, if you will, the scope of how well we might relate on different subjects. Talking to someone new is a lot like playing Battleships. A new topic might miss the mark and the conversation might begin to unravel, the charm broken.

You walked me out when I left. You said, 'I don't really do this, but can I get your number?'

This got me thinking about the follow through. Are connections momentary or are connections truly only when they more from the ephemeral to the more reified realm of the promise of more? I find there are never enough words in the English language to describe the stages of things like this. Perhaps those who we don’t connect with are the acquaintances. But then within that distinction, there are those who you might smile at in passing, or the ones who you would say hello to, and then another level – the ones who you would at least ask how they were for a few awkward moments. I suppose ultimately what it is about is the moment – the face to face and the being human. No matter the time frame, it’s the interaction that is the punctum.

…I did give him my number.

Girl at Ted's Camera's, 7pm, Friday

"It must suck," I said, beer breath escaping, "That you have to stay open so late on a Friday."
The girl looked up from her listless clicking of her computer screen, her eyes dazed. She look Indian, or Sri Lankan maybe, although race shouldn't be a matter, she should just be a person. I place my purchase on the counter.
"Yeah", she agreed, her eyes slightly creasing at the edges, "It does...you want that?"
"Yes thanks."
"We're open 'til like, 8, no, 9pm. It's totally bedtime by the time you're done."
"I can imagine" I said. "And there'd be only someone every 20 minutes after a certain time...not very exciting."
She scanned the barcode and swiped my card with precision and speed.
"Cheque, Savings or Credit?"
I pressed the keypad, watching my invisible money disappear into the ether.
"Do you work in retail too?" She asked.
I paused, not know really how to answer the question - it was not so much that she wanted to know what I did, but why I realised that her job was shit.
"No," I answered, "I've just come to come to realise these things." I felt inadequate at expressing who I felt.
"I appreciate you being here." I added.
She smiled and almost laughed. "Thanks."
I left the store.

On Meeting People Twice

Most people would agree that they do not stay the same. As all live and circumstance in which we live are in a constant state of change (whether we are highly aware of it or not), meeting people at one point in time, may be entirely different to meeting them at another.

I had an experience where this happened last year. I met someone rather serendipitously , almost four years after I first met them. Not only had they changed (particularly their appearance), so had their circumstances. So had I changed, in both these ways too.

The first meeting was at a party, with the theme of black and white. He was dress as a pirate, and I looked like I was meant for a American marching band.

The point of our connexion that night was not drinking. He had just given up for good, and I was on a self-imposed twelve-week hiatus.

We sat on the floor in a room away from the main party for a while. I don't remember what we talked about, but I remember being impressed. I also remember wishing that he was not already seeing a distant friend.

The Second connexion came through university. We ended up in the same class. At first, I didn't release it was the same person. He was not a pirate. He did not have a septum piercing anymore. He had just shaved his head. Our original proclivity for conversation still existed, despite the time and the changes, yet it was if I was meeting someone entirely new.

Alistair

Alistair, I don't know how to spell your name, Alisdair.
Alistair, you're lying shirtless on a fold-out couch and I only just meet you a moment ago -
Sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea. It had cinnamon and peppermint as its flavours.
And I reckon, it was your talk of taking down the wall,
between the kitchen, and the living room, that got me really thinking.
I kept smiling in your direction, because that's the way I tread ground with new persons -
Softly-softly, with men particularly.
You're my friends new house-mate. Sydney once knew your name, but now Melbourne - 
A year since moving. Construction the object of your study.
I try to approach new ways of asking of you, trying to avoid the same old questions.
You're tired, you're hungover, we talk about cities and solar power.

Trevor

His face folds into pensive creases. He is thinking, he is thinking. Is he even thinking of the question that remains unanswered?

"I can't really describe my job" He says, finally. "I sort of do a bit of everything in this office, research, policy..." He trailed off.

I seem to have the same conversations these days.
What do you do, where are you going, where have you been? All questions run end to end. All seem to have similar answers when they are asked, but perhaps that's because I continue to ask similar people.

University students seem to be the primary fodder of thought at the moment, as life revolves infinitum between class-home-homework-sleep-work-class.

I end up agreeing with him in a sense: I can't really describe what one of my jobs is either.

"It's sort of having conversations with people, employing basic psychology a lot of the time, and facilitating the ways in which they can work themselves." I say, lines I have rehearsed now, because the same questions are being asked of me.

Kelly

She wrote my name at the top of the page of her diary, next to the day and the date. 

The conversation had begun in the way which I have been seeking to create them myself, but she was the creator. 

She asked me, somewhat bluntly, in the slow-syllable way she spoke, what my name was. 

Drawing a border around the word she'd written, she then asked what I was doing here. 

It was a strange way to phrase a banal question. Her straggly, mouse-coloured bun nodded with her as she listen to me explain my orientation within university. 

She started a bachelor with a major in ecological major - a stream which was such down within a year, due to lack of interest.

I am taking a cultural-studies major, something that has also been consigned to the flames of history. It's all 'specialisations' now; psychology, journalism, digital media, multimedia.

The 'Aims & Objectives' paragraph on the Bachelor of Arts website reads 

'The Bachelor of Arts degree is designed to produce graduates who are able to contribute effectively and professionally to a dynamic global economy'

She traces another line around my name in her diary as we share a silence.

Tyron

Tyron is a double-bass player. He plays with various bands and artists. As it stands, he's performed at 5 gigs in the last 3 days, 3 just today. 

Tonight it's with The ReChords, at The Gem, a pub with the sympathy for Elvis adornments and wooden fixtures.

Tyron looks sheepish as he stands with a friend of mine and I, outside smoking in the new dark.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I remember your name" he says.

The buxom lady depicted on his forearm flexes as he extents his hand.

"Oh no", I say, "I don't think we have ever exchanged names! I'm Monique."

He looks relieved.

"Good to meet you."

On Trying to Meet People

There is a distinct mood that comes over you when you try to meet people. I have some to notice this when I decided to begin writing about the people I meet. The thing is, when you focus on something, you begin to see the subtleties.
The subtleties that are now screamingly apparent, is the fact that in my normal operations of life, I don't come to meet a lot of people. Perhaps I interact with some, but in terms of proper 'meeting', there are very few.

At the risk of have a rather bare-bones blog about the people that I meet, I came to realise as I started it, that I was going to have to challenge myself to actually go out and meet people instead of sitting in the proverbial corner.

I have never been much of a 'meeter'. I've always been more on the shy-side of socially inept. Once when I was working at a restaurant when I was 18, it took me three weeks to say a single word (more than Hello) to a new chef (although, that may have been because I  found him attractive).

Deciding to try to meet more people presents more questions and problems:

What is actually 'meeting'? Is it having a conversation or is it talking to someone for long enough/in a way in which you end up exchanging names? 

Have you still not met someone if you spend an entire partying discussing with someone about the philosophical complexity of whale song but don't get their name?

The reverse is a problem too. Have you really met someone if you just get introduced and don't back that up with further interaction?

And, trying to meet people makes things a bit like a chore in the mind. It's a bit forced, a bit orchestrated. While I was out last night, i thought 'I should probably try to meet someone so I can write about it.' But to actually do that it more complicated than you think. 

You can't just strike up a conversation with anyone. Or can you? I might try that one today...

On Shyness and Meeting People

I used to be very shy. I took me a long time to say hello to anyone if I was not introduced. When I was introduced, I then didn't say much.
I was that child that hid behind her mothers legs. As I got older, I suppose my shyness became somewhat tamed. I remained though, lurking, and I admired people that made it all look so easy.

On the eve of beginning at film school when I finished high school and turned 18, I cried rivers in fear of having to meet people and make new friends. But, as it came to pass, through film school, I met someone that changed my life for ever, particularly in my approach to meeting people.

We are still friends to this day. Through our growing bond, I learned to adapt some of her qualities when it came to interaction with new people. If I could distill it to a brisk sentence of set of rules for all shy people to apply, I suppose it would be something like this:
1) Treat everyone the same
2) Pretend like you have known them your entire life

If you suspend all thought for just a moment, and see a human for what it is, just another person, before you judge what or who they might be, it is easy to say 'hello' to them.

Humans have such amazing abilities to create walls, which we interpret and respond to. What I am referring to are the semiotic codes that we read from people and make judgments from. Clothing, vernacular, accessories, body language, tone, facial expression and so forth all mediate our experience of people. Through interpreting these codes, we then also place our own experiences and interpretations of what that person will  be like from the messages they are sending.

If for a moment we can be acutely conscious of these restrictions, we can then suspend them, and just see a person as a human. This distinction makes the initial ice-breaking moment much more easy to initiate.

I'm still not a specialist at meeting people. I still get scared, stay quiet and hid, but sometimes, I can transcend that, and it's all a character building experience.

Meit

Meit was pink and green and dancing. He moved amongst other rainbowed, flexing bodies, shimmering in the midday. 

There was a crowd; people on their lunch times pausing to watch the spectacle. They danced in circles, each taking a turn in the middle, singing the Hindi words over the top of thudding pop music. 

"This is Holi" Meit told me, when I asked what it was all about. 

"Tell me the story!" I tried to be heard over the music.

 "You want to know what it is about?"he asked grinning. "Yes!"

Meit dipped his fingers into powered dye of deep-mulberry pink and dusted my cheeks. "This is what it's about."

And he was off again, writhing to the middle of the throng. Specks of power fell from my face, settling to blush my chest as I smiled. I looked back to the watchers and the distance they granted those freed in celebration. I wore the colours for the rest of the day.

John

I met John. This was the first time I have really gone out of my way to approach someone outside of class to get to know them. I saw him walking down the platform with the sun in his eyes. I had my shoes off, my headphones on; feet communing with the bitumen surface, Radiohead softly filling my head.

I'm more often than not, one to wait for people to come to me. Not out of any elitism (although, sometimes I tell myself it's so) but more out of fear; fear of rejection, of the unknown, I suppose.

John is in my philosophy seminar. We'd exchanged some ideas that afternoon across the classroom, and I wondered further about some of his assertions. 

He talked about economic approaches and how they could be reconciled within a more humanistic philosophical model; something with a real-world basis.

I slipped my shoes back on and turned off my music, walking over.

"Hi" I said.

The train came and we'd already covered where I lived, and that no, I wasn't Canadian (he picked up on the strange fact that I have a habit of elongating my 'ere' - as in 'here' and 'where' - sounds).  Within minutes we were getting existential, both trying to comprehend some of the concepts which had been presented to us that afternoon.

The conversation oscillated between commonalities and lofty rhetorical questions of reductionism, Hegel, dialectical patterns and the world of becoming.

He's from New Zealand, although the accent has been beaten out of him, by people always asking him to 'say things'. 

He 'sells alcohol to people'; a dry characterisation of a job within our society which made me smile. No dressing it up with 'I'm a barman.' Straight to the essence of the matter: implying  his uncomfortable status of the larger implications of his employment.

He lives in Airport West so we took the same train that snaked slowly through the city loop, out towards North Melbourne, were I was to get off. As I made to do so, our conversation closing with the knowledge that it would most likely continue at our next class; he shook my hand, and I smiled.

"Enjoy." I said.