Hello stranger

A strange thing happened to me yesterday evening as I was hanging around in Mid Valley Mega Mall. I was reading a Carrefour catalog while walking, occasionally looked up so I wouldn’t bump into people. Suddenly a guy voiced ‘hey’ loud enough that I was sure it was directed to me. I halted, turned back and saw this guy looking at me.

“Ya..?” I asked, puzzled.

“You look very familiar” he said with a smile.

This made me smile, but I can’t recall ever seeing his face in my life, anywhere, anytime. I gave him my puzzled look, braced with a smile.

“I don’t know. Where have you seen me? I don’t think we’ve met before.” I said.

Strange really.

We both ran our hard disks into overdrive, facial expressions set to brainstroming mode, trying very hard to remember where we met. If there was a bench around, we’d sit.

There was nothing.

“Very familiar, really”, he reassured me.

Before it got awkward I asked “What’s your name?”

“Henry”

“I’m Agus, hi”. . . . . . . and still nothing.

“Where do you work?” Henry asked.

I told him the name and location of the company I work with.

He told me his. At first it sounded like CSE.

“CS what?”

“CSC” he repeated.

“Oh CSC. Were you in Maybank before?”

“Now no more in Maybank” He replied, maybe unclear with my question.

“Oh! Maybe you are friends with my housemate Ron. He used to work with Maybank. Then he was outsourced to CSC. Ya, we might have met during lunch or something.” I said quickly.

I can’t help it. Here is a stranger, saying he remembers my face and I couldn’t recall nuts. It didn’t actually make me look good. In fact, it says that I forget people easily, and that’s bad. So I settled with the first reason I can get; and now I’m trying to make him accept it as well. From his looks, he’s still puzzled though.

As if rushed by my behavior, he quickly nodded in agreement.

“Yup, I’ll tell Ron I met you. Yeah, we might have been introduced through him or his friends” I said. In actual fact, I was not sure myself. Hanging around won't help either.

After one second’s silence I continued “ Hey man, nice to meet you. I’ll see you around okay.”

He indicated mutuality and we both turned around and went opposite ways. That was quick! Yeah, I figured we both had stuff to do besides hanging around and exchange life's updates. Plus, we don't even know each other, I think.

Phew, that was weird.

I quickly took out my phone and text Ron to verify. To my dismay, Ron knew no one by that name. Then it hit me.

Oh no! Was I very rude back there? I mean, I indirectly dismissed a friendly attempt to reconnect. How did he feel then. Did I leave him dangling and curious. I know I am. Extremely curious now. He could be someone important. This could change my life. I need to try harder.

By the time I decided to turn back and look for him we were very far apart. I went on nonetheless. Walking quickly and scanning every outlet vigorously, I could not see any trace of him.

I finally gave up search. Oh what the heck. Consider it another encounter of the third kind.

Besides, what was I supposed to say?

“Hey, I can’t recall meeting you but I have a couple of minutes. You wanna get something to drink? Maybe grab a bite?” Yeah, that’s a pickup line.

“Hey, I can’t remember you, but lets exchange numbers and we’ll talk as soon as either of us remember something.” Do I really want to give my number to a complete stranger? Does he?

“Hey, tell you what, you give me your name card and I’ll call you as soon as I remember you. Sorry I can’s give mine coz I have none.” Huh?

Here, try this;

“Dude, I think you got the wrong person. Repeat after me; I have never seen you before. You look familiar, period.”

Maybe it’s because we’re Asians or something. We don’t normally come up to strangers and say that they look familiar. That is weird here. This is especially true when two men does it. One second you’re straight, the next you’re not really so and the whole world doubts it, if you catch my drift. To most of us, when someone looks familiar, a name should come up after a while. In my case, nothing! And when there’s nothing, insert this line “Nah, maybe I got the wrong person. Sorry to bother you” and click NEXT.

Personally however, I think it’s nice that a stranger tells me I look familiar. It somehow means that I don’t go unnoticed. And I salute the person who does this. Male or female. I know it’s hard for me. So, Henry, thank you for bringing that up. You certainly gave me something interesting to think about yesterday. You don’t care if you got the wrong person, the wrong impression or be dismissed. That’s brave. It was nice of you too. You’ve made me a curious man, but it was nice.

P/s : Henry, if you’re reading this, I apologize if you’ve really met me somewhere and we became friends. Please drop me a line. We could hang out, get a drink or grab a bite.