People you remember for no apparent reason

In My Humble Opinion
1

Note to the mods: this thread is a poll of sorts, I think, but if it’s too pointless, feel free to punt it over in that direction.

Over in the [thread=388198]thread about guys and their crushing behavior[/thread],

I think a lot of people have memories like that. Anyone want to share?
I’ll go first.

Three years ago, almost exactly, I was riding the BART into San Francisco with a friend of mine, and a girl sat down in the seat in front of us. I don’t remember why exactly, but we started talking. Her name was Melody, and she imprinted herself quite distinctly in my mind. She was going to a friend’s party, wearing a fairy shirt and (I think) a hemp necklace. She was studying at the cullinary academy had her big case of cooking knives with her. After she stayed on one extra stop to talk with us more, I invited her to check out the street fair with us, but she had to go, and I scrawled my email address on a scrap of paper in case she wanted to talk more. She said she would, and we went in our separate directions.

I never heard from her again.

For two weeks I was kicking myself for not getting her phone number, and I started the habit of carrying a pen and paper around, but other than that I shrugged it off. That’s life, yes? Maybe the paper got smudged out of readability, or maybe she lost it. Probably she just wasn’t interested. C’est la vie, no big deal.

Except that every year, right around this time, I’ll stop and wonder how she’s doing. There’s no real reason behind it. I only knew her for twenty minutes, after all. She struck me as a very intelligent, very well-grounded sort of person, so I’m sure she’s doing pretty well for herself.

But there it is, every year, Hmm, I met Melody about this time a couple years ago. She was cool. I liked her. I wonder how she’s doing?

Do you have any people like that?

2

Yup. I know more about her (barely) than the Citizen Kane character does about his, but a lot less than you do about Melody. I was crossing a large bus station one dark evening in the mid-nineties, when I heard someone say “You’re cute”. I turned to see a girl, probably around my own age at the time (16-19), who was… well, let’s just say that physically she was my type. So much so, that in the Dictionary of Priceguy, her picture is posted right next to “Type”. I hadn’t noticed her when I came by the same route a few minutes earlier, but apparently she had seen me and when I came by a second time she matter-of-factly stated what she thought of me.

I was in a relationship at the time and wasn’t a wonder at social interaction anyway (still ain’t), so I only managed to muster something like “You too”. A little later, I got on my bus and never saw her again.

I often wonder who she was, what she saw in me, and what would have happened if I had been single and gone up to her.

3

Yup, several years ago while on holiday in the US I was travelling by train/bus across country to get to Seattle, then back to Indiana, somewhere along the way in one bus station a woman asked me to mind her stuff while she went to the bathroom, and in turn she minded my stuff when I went. We struck up a short conversation as a result… I often wonder where she was going that she had so much luggage with her [to something we discussed]

On one of the buses there was a youngish girl with a baby - she gave the baby a small sip of soda and the baby’s face a picture, making us all laugh… that baby would be 8-10 years old now and I wonder about her.

Finally at another stop somewhere a fella started talking to me, he was waiting to go for a job interview and getting very worked up about it because he’d been in hospital with mental health problems and this was his first opportunity to find work since … I chatted away to him about everything and nothing - and he thanked me for taking his mind off things and helping his to calm down. I wished him luck, and I still wonder if he got the job and how he’s doing now…

4

For my 10th birthday I came to NYC on a Greyhound bus–by myself!–to visit my great-aunt Syl. (It turns out it was the week of the big Be-In in Central Park, but that’s another story).

Sitting next to me on the bus was a Nice Older Lady (could have been anywhere from 25 to 55) who chatted with me and gave me some paper to draw on and admired my drawings and pointed to the Burma-Shave signs on the highway. Never knew what her name was, but I still remember what a Nice Lady she was.

5

On evening on June 16th, 1994, I was walking by False Creek on the Kitsilano side and observed three teenaged girls having a picnic in Charleson Park while watching some toddlers. I’m sure the girls were just babysitting; they looked too young to be mothers. Just as the sun was going down, there were some impromptu fireworks, and one of the girls leaned waaaaay back to look at them, and the way that she sat afforded me a clear view up her skirt. I stood there for a minute, gobsmacked, and before I could get it together to avert my eyes, she was looking directly into them. I was embarrassed, but she just gave me an odd little smile and casually started to stand up. I was really taken with how innocent and beautiful she looked, but as she started to walk towards her friends, I noticed that he had a very bad limp, which made me feel a bit sad and a little ashamed.

No, wait, that happened to that other fella.

Never mind.

6

As noted in the above post, I always have an apparent reason I remember people. Maybe not a good reason, but there is always a reason.

7

Um. Are you my long lost brother? I’ve got a similar story…except it was in the dorms. A cute girl (that I don’t remember being in my building) comes on with me and says “Nice shirt”. I reply with “Thanks, my girlfriend picked it out for me”. That effectively ended the conversation, but I wonder how it’d have turned out if I had said the “right” thing.

Now that I think about it, I’ve got at least a dozen stories about me saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or me saying nothing at the right time. Crap, I know nothing about flirting. I must have been absent the week they talked about it in school.

Man, I could take this thread over, but I won’t. It’d be too damned tragic and I’d have to go swallow some Drano to drown my sorrows*.

*This is hyperbole, the male equivalent to “overreacting”.

8

I was at the zoo with my friend. He was looking at the bears and I was looking around at the people.

There was a big group, and there was one girl…

She had light brown curly hair, about shoulder length, held away from her face with a gren headband. She was wearing a light slate blue tank top… a very light cotton with an eyelet layer on top. She was very thin. The tank top was loose and I got the feeling it was probably difficult to find non-child clothing in her size. One of her friends gave her a hat and she put it on.

9

I can’t think of any. They all have a reason to be remembered for me. The girl on the plane who was scared because her friend had died in a crash. The old woman in Japan who made sure I got safely to the aquarium, despite the fact that I didn’t speak Japanese and she didn’t speak English. They all have a story. The ones that don’t, I don’t remember.