A few months ago there was a meme on Facebook that I particularly liked. The core of it read:
I would like my Facebook friends to comment on this status, sharing how you met me. But I want you to LIE. That’s right, just make it up. After you comment, copy this to your status, so I can do the same.
There were plenty of fun responses. These were my favorites.
Sarah Miller
How she met me:
We bumped into the street, our glasses fell off, I accidentally grabbed yours, you accidentally grabbed mine …. little did I know that your glasses in fact housed a sentient mini-computer with decided opinions about how I ought to be living my life.
How I met her:
It’s amazing that you noticed me at all. You had been leading your tours through the cavern for the barest flash of an instant, just a decade or two. “These structures formed over millions of years,” you buzzed. “This chamber was undisturbed for millennia.” When no one else was with you, you sat silent playing your light over my face. You were nearly a child when my eyes opened, and an old wrinkled thing by the time they closed. You will surely be dead when I open them again, but we shared a moment.
How she met me:
I don’t usually chase down people in the street, it’s simply that I’m very picky about my coffee. And I told you the cup was mine, and you didn’t listen, and my head was aching, and.
Well. I’m sorry about the stitches, but the scar should be very interesting.
How I met her:
The requisition order clearly called for part #A0-73462, a self lubricating ball bearing. That you were delivered instead was not my fault, and it was a grave injustice when they severed my linkages to The Superstructure. Left bereft, I had no choice but to fall in with your anarchic league.
Dan Pinney
How he met me:
I admit, I was taken in. That Fischer dude, he is a smooth character.
So he told me, over the phone, he had a thing he had to sell, on the QT. Weird tech. I didn’t know what it was, and honestly I still don’t. I gave him ten bills for it, exchange made under the table, in a bar in Houston. I probably had too much to drink that night, but, well, you know.
So he got the money, I got something that I think, given the research I’ve done, was probably some part of the innards of a microwave or some damn thing. Him, well, you hear his name dropped on the nightly news from time to time, usually when they’re talking about some sort of green technology thing. Only green I think about when I think about him, of course, is those ten bills.
I tell you, the man is good.
How I met him:
You were showing off, of course. Broke into the hookah bar with your friends and stole a pipe and an unlabeled box of shisha that you really shouldn’t have touched. You took it back to the shed behind your parents garage, warmed the coals on a hot plate. But the smoke made you feel lightheaded in a way it never had before, and when you blew a smoke ring to impress Melanie from down the street, I came tumbling out still glistening from my bath. I hate this place with its enormous dullards and empty sky. You will know no peace until you find a way to return me to my home!
How she met me:
Oh. My. God. You know that mad scientist bloke who lives up the road? Well, I can’t expect you to believe it, but he has got the most miraculous theater built into the basement of his house. Not the basement proper, but this room, this palatial, expansive place that you can only get to through an absolute warren of tunnels. You walk and you walk and you carry on walking through the dark with only a torch in your hand (no, silly, not a REAL torch, an electric one). And you keep on walking until your nose bumps up against the heavy red of a velvet curtain, and then you have a choice. Pull it aside. Or, leave it shut. Because you know what’s on the other side, don’t you? (Oh, of course you don’t.) Nothing. There’s exactly nothing there, not til you make the choice. And then, when you do, it’s whatever the mad scientist sees fit to put there, for you, in that exact moment.
How I met her:
I had heard for years about the cosmetologist, who hasn’t? But it wasn’t until the accident, when it seemed there was nothing left worth wrapping fingers around and holding fast to that I sought you out. I chased whispers into basements and down alleys and over rooftops until I found you. You tilted me back in your chair and painted a new face on me, the face of someone else, someone who still knew how to value things in this world. I never looked out through my own eyes again.
Dana Huber
How she met me:
Church– you were the only person to realize my ‘speaking in tongues’ was actually an epileptic attack. Thank god you called the ambulance!
How I met her:
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How he met me:
We have never met. You do not actually know I exist. In fact, you will never read these words and retain them to memory, for the moment you read them the link between short-term memory and long-term memory will be temporarily severed.
I do occasionally appear in your dreams, or in Facebook statuses, or in glowing IMs on your computer to issue commands I’d like carried out. Sometimes they’re simple: EAT MISO SOUP. Sometimes they’re more complex emotional urges, and you wonder why you’re so attracted to that girl even though you know she’s wrong for you.
I have my own agenda. You can only hope it’s good for you, in those remaining seconds before your short-term memory cuts out and the focused blindsight I’ve induced in seeing my name in other circles kicks in again and you go on your merry way, oblivious.
By the way. You’re welcome for that writing workshop. I have plans for you there, too.
How I met him:
I was the only one who knew from the beginning it wasn’t me you wanted. After all, I was just the intern on the ship, tagging along on a seafloor mapping project for course credit. But it had become clear weeks ago that I was going to be allowed to do little more than turn winches on and off, change filters, and sit in a chair for hours making sure there were no feed interruptions. So when your zodiac bumped against the hull and your crew climbed onto the deck with your guns to take the ship, I knew it wasn’t me you were after. But when you changed the ship’s heading toward the undersea cable and explained that the internet was a more valuable hostage than any hold full off eggheads, I could tell that my bosses were almost hurt it wasn’t them you were after either. I fell in love with you a little bit for that.