Oh God, I must be really looking lonely. How else then would I explain random people walking up to me and asking to be my “friends”? It’s either I look so desperately lonely that they pity me, or God is just being generous and giving me friends at every turn.

You know I was just sitting in the Cafeteria, minding my own business (as I always do) and having my daily dose of morning coffee, when then out of the blue, there’s this woman with a sad face towering above me.

“Do you mind if I share the table with you?”

What the hell is going on with me? Do I have a poster on my forehead advertising loneliness?

Of course, that’s not what I told her. I could’ve told her that I enjoy spending my mornings in solitude, especially after having the Applied Journalism test beat the hell out of me. I mean I could’ve, but I didn’t. Something in me wanted to scream at her to go and sit in one of the empty tables (there were many empty tables) and let me drink my coffee in peace. I wasn’t having the best of mornings.

I had just written and convincingly failed a test (left a 15 marks question unanswered). The last thing I needed, really, was a petty chat with a stranger.

“Do you mind if I share the table with you?” she said, after I had spent some time just staring at her. In fact, I was trying to gather the enough wits to tell her politely that I would love to be left alone. However, seeing her sad face, I smiled politely and reluctantly told her that I didn’t mind to share a table with her.

I hate to say it, but that was the best reluctant decisions ever.

If I had known that Linda (her name) was such a beautiful soul, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about it. She is like me in more ways than one.

I don’t think it is a mere coincidence that we share a birthday and our mother’s share a birthday and our father’s birthdays are only a day apart. Her parents are divorced; mine are still going through the process. And, like me, she was dragged to Cape Town against her will when her parents divorced last year December.

How’s that for too many coincidences?

I bet there are more that we haven’t yet talked about. Oh, she also likes having coffee in the morning. But unlike me, she doesn’t enjoy drinking coffee all by herself.

“One shouldn’t drink coffee all by herself. No, that should be illegal. I am a firm believer of the Turkish proverb that says: ‘a cup of coffee commits one to forty years of friendship,’”

When I asked her why she had chosen to sit with me, she pointed at the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book that was on the table and said, “I’m currently reading the same book. I knew, from the moment I saw you, that you and I would click, but I hadn’t predicted that we would share so many similarities,”

I know I always say that I’m very choosy when it comes to choosing friends and that one should meet certain requirements to be my friend, but she naturally fits in.

Yes, I got myself a friend today.

Lesson learnt today: no matter how crappy your day is you must never be unkind to a stranger or to anyone for that matter because a stranger today can be a friend tomorrow.

ZZ xxx

Dish it: where (and how) did you meet your current best friend?

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