Have you ever known someone you can't seem to avoid? Maybe it's someone you know well and maybe it's someone you don't know at all... but through a series of seemingly random happenstances you feel like you either:
(A)Should get to know that person
or, if you already do know them, you should
(B)Get to know them better. It's the standard matter of proximity.
It's a somewhat amusing, confusing, and curious dance we do that makes us question and compare the meaning of words like "purpose" and "coincidence". We might give these people nicknames and talk to our close friends and roommates about them. It becomes a game. We have to run home to tell someone that, once again ("What are the ODDS??") we saw, "That bearded-guy from Big Mamma's" or "Wolf man from physics" or "nail-biter from Coms 205" etc... We laugh and recite what we observed this person doing or what awkward conversation occurred and marvel at the chance run-in with whomever it is. It's a game some people love. I hate it. Athens is like a weirdo hybrid designed for crap like that. Not small enough to know everyone but not big enough to get lost in the crowd. After you've lived here long enough, you find yourself doing the proximity dance more and more often.
I have been doing the proximity dance with one person in particular for three years now... By far the longest running dance yet... I've decided to give him a pseudonym for the sake of privacy and refer to him as Voldemort, in case I need to tell you about the next unbelievable run-in. Anyway, I had another one today. It makes me incredibly paranoid. Every time it happens I feel like I'm having a minor panic attack. Why won't Voldemort just leave Harry Potter be?
