We like to think we’re in charge of who walks into our lives. We swipe, network, mingle and RSVP, all in pursuit of the right people. Yet, life has a curious way of introducing us to the most unforgettable characters when we’re not even trying. You can spend years curating your LinkedIn only to meet your future business partner in the queue for Duty Free at T2 in Manchester. You can spend a lifetime searching for your tribe and find someone who just gets you in a chatroom at two in the morning because you couldn’t sleep and thought “Why not pop into this weird corner of the internet?”
These are the people we meet without even looking. They show up like plot twists in a soap that didn’t need another season but got one anyway. You’re minding your own business on a delayed flight to Singapore when the man next to you in the lounge starts talking about healthy ageing with the kind of passion normally reserved for sports or Labradors. You listen politely for the first ten minutes. Ninety minutes later you’ve swapped business cards, shared a few too many personal anecdotes, and then you find you’re on the same flight…
And then there’s the digital encounter. Perhaps you’re in an online forum about rugby. One minute you’re arguing about whether Carter was the GOAT, the next you’re in a seven and a quarter hour deep chat with someone who not only shares your taste in music but melts time in a way you never expected. You don’t even know what they look like because let’s face it, anyone can post a picture online but you’ve connected in way that is real and deep. It wouldn’t matter if they lived in a tent…
It’s almost rude how casual these meetings are. No agenda, no strategic outreach, no algorithmic matchmaking. Just pure chance. Like the guy who sits beside you at a conference, spills his coffee, apologises profusely, then becomes your best friend, your flatmate, or the co-founder of your startup.
You weren’t seeking, scrolling or scheming. You were just there. So were they. The rest was just something unexplanable…
Still, the magic is in the randomness. We’re trained to think that value comes from planning, from intention, from effort. Yet some of the best moments, the best people, arrive when our guard is down, our expectations low and our interest mostly in finding something to do at stupid o’clock.
There’s no lesson here really, except maybe this: remain open. Be curious. Say yes sometimes, even if it’s to something unglamorous like a seat in row 38B or a message in a rugby chat room at stupid o’clock that says “Hey, can I DM you?” Life has a way of giving you the people you didn’t know you needed at exactly the moment you weren’t paying attention.
I wasn’t lookin’ but somehow you found me….
The way that you hold meWhenever you hold meThere’s some kind of magic inside youThat keeps me from runnin’But just keep it comin’
How d’you learn to do the things you do…
Photo by Tobias Rademacher
