an unexpected chat

I love impromptu conversations. I was sitting in the cafe at the William Penn, a biography of Jane Austen by Claire Tomalin resting open face down on my chest as I rested slouched back into a white-covered plumpy chair when a man came over with tea and asked if he could sit near me, there being five other chairs similar to mine empty within my vicinity. I of course said yes, with a smile. I was in a good mood, having just had lunch with a good friend, and just that afternoon started a new book at my favourite cafe. And, I must say, hopped up on a grande size tea very aptly named "Awake."

He started talking to me. I feigned reading my book for a few seconds, disinclined to talk with him, fearful he would be boring or weird and I'd be stuck in a 45 minute conversation thinking of an excuse to exit the building. But I was interested the minute he said he was from Rochester, New York and staying at the William Penn for a wedding (not, as I presumed and later discovered, his own).

So we talked for an hour and a half. He's an economist. Owns his own business, the money from which he makes he gives to various charities he supports. He got into economics as a young wanna-be activist.

I could write more about our conversation but I don't want to, and it was not especially note-worthy. It was the sort of conversation you would have just meeting someone. What movies and books do you like, politics, where you've traveled... Except what made it very nice was that, unlike most first time conversations with someone, we weren't being set up on a blind date, or have met online in some I'mdesperatesoImgoingtofindadateonline sort of thing. But an unexpected chat with someone who I was interested in, no small feat truth be told.

I like the unexpected. Any day of the week I will take that over the boring yet safe existence of a repetitious life.

By the way, he's like 45 and lives in another state, so there will be nothing romantic going on. Although he did give me his e-mail address and phone number.