A Stranger Is...

...only a stranger for a day. What did you do today? I for one spoke to a complete stranger for about 10 minutes today. Seriously though, today i feel like i'm on some sort of coke or riding on an enigma that is just moving through my entire body. I mean i just spent 10 minutes of my time waiting for the bus talking to a girl i've never seen before!!! It's phenomenal in every sense of the word considering how much of a social cripple i am. Usually when i'm at the bus stop, i tend to plug in my ear phones and just nod away to music or an audio book. On other times, i manage to amuse myself and others around me by subconsciously making random movements. Today's random movement was skipping. Honestly, i can't even begin to give you a reason why i was skipping or how i even started considering the fact that i wasn't listening to music and i didn't have a rope with me. So this girl smiles at me in a weird way whilst fishing for her cardigan. So i smiled back and chipped in 'Freezing huh?' and that was how the conversation started. She talked about expecting this year's summer to be pretty cool considering that winter wasn't - thank God someone agrees on that note. I told her about my planned bus marathon to dash back to my accommodation to pick 2 slices of toast before returning for the tutorial i had next. The point of this whole conversation isn't what i said; but the fact that i actually spoke!!! I'm still amazed at myself and i'm going to try and say hi to a random person everyday for this month. Of course, some people might choose to ignore me. But if i only get one smile and response back, i'm fine. But hey...that's not the end of the story for today...
After my toast induced marathon, i got back to uni just in time for my tutorial. For this particular tutorial, 2 people are meant to teach us a topic each week and today happened to be a guy that fascinates me but i've never had the balls to say hi to. Lame i know, considering that i've actually attended this class for the past 6 weeks. The most we've ever done is exchange glances and smiles across the room. But that all changed today because we didn't just glance at each other for 50 minutes, we actually spoke!!!!! There's just something about his eyes that seems to draw me in everytime i see him; or maybe it's the fact that he looks much better in skinny jeans than i do. But today was like 'glance overload!' Everyone i assume knows that one of the main things in presentations is to try and maintain eye contact with your audience. Well, he did that pretty well and since all the people sitting on my side of the class left early, i was the only one in that section for him to maintain eye contact with. But hey, i'm not complaining one bit. By now i'm sure it's obvious that i didn't listen as much; my subconscious mind did its job of absorbing everything he taught because i can actually remember. So after sharing glances for 20 minutes of his presentation, i decided to have 'small talk' after class.

I already knew his name but i really couldn't think of another way to start the conversation so i asked for his name again and he told me John. The minute he said that, i absolutely realised why i'm slightly fascinated by him. He reminds me a bit of Johnny Depp; he's not your puke cute kind of guy but he is somewhat enigmatic. Did i mention that he's got a bit of a bass/baritone voice going on? Anyway, he asked me the question 95% of people ask me and for the same reason 'So, where are you from?'. Cocky me, i wasn't willing to give in easily so i said 'around somewhere...but why don't you guess?' And he goes 'Well, i detect a bit of American, some European language and a bit of Pommy but it's all one big mix'. So i ended up telling him i'm nigerian but i've lived in other countries and his response was 'Aha, it all makes perfect sense'. I must admit no one has ever told me that i've got a bit of European pronounciations in my vocabulary but i'm pretty sure when i tell my friend in UK this, she's going to be stoked because she's from the french-speaking area in Cameroon so i always try and practice my french with her. I'm guessing all my years of learning languages has finally creeped into my accent. Well, i'm off to go do some kickboxing!
Images via Despianart.com and Synthtopia.com