I was on a National Express coach from Newcastle to Edinburgh, years ago, and a couple stops in this guy stows a mountain bike in the luggage compartment, gets on the bus and it’s pretty full so he ends up sitting next to me.
We chatted for the whole trip, he was telling me about how he’d just spent the last couple of days biking across the country, it was just a really nice pleasant encounter with no awkwardness or anything, which as you can imagine since I’m on Lemmy is not a normal occurrence for me.
At one point I started to feel travel sick, which I think freaked him out a bit at first, but I’d come prepared with some minty sweets to keep it at bay which I of course shared with my new friend.
He got off the coach before we reached Edinburgh, and I remember sitting there watching him retrieve his bike and wave up at me to say goodbye, and I realised…we never even introduced ourselves. Like, not even first names. And I don’t know if it was the mild delirium of the travel sickness but I was just hit with this wave of existential realisation that I’d never see this person again ever in my life.
It wasn’t a romantic thing or anything, he was just canny and it’s weird we didn’t exchange any info!
I think about National Express Bike Bloke on a fairly regular basis. Hope he’s had a happy life.
I was about 13 at the time and on a family vacation. My parents were in a store shopping and I was bored so I went to stand outside. I’m standing out there and this very old, very fat, very short man (he looked a lot like Danny devito) walks up to me and says “Aren’t you just the cutest.” He then pinches my cheek and walks away. I’ll never forget him.
When i was fourteen and on vacation in sardegna,on a boat trip with my family i saw this girl i absolutely fell in love with. Never talked to her, never saw her again. Still remember her face.
I was a teenager at Wendy’s with my parents and some homeless looking hippy ahead of me turns around and says “don’t ever change” lol well I guess he was somewhat accurate ahahah!
I saw a stranger riding a bicycle along the gravel trail surrounding the reflecting pool of the Lincoln Memorial in DC. He was kitted out like a tour de Francer and was riding way too fast for being in a crowded area. So inevitably some tourist steps into his path. Instead of hitting her he threw the bike to the ground and launched himself over the handlebars, landing with a perfect shoulder roll. He dusted himself off, asked if the tourist was alright, and zoomed off into the twilight with his bicycle.
So he perfectly diffused a dangerous situation that was entirely of his own creation. I’ve never known exactly how to feel about that random dude that was simultaneously super talented and super irresponsible. I’ll never forget that random ass dude and his midlife crisis sprint bike.
I was 18 and riding on a train in Salt Lake City in 1999 or 2000. There was this girl with her friends on the other end of the car and she was knitting. We made eye contact and she smiled. My friend urged me to go talk to her but I was too intimidated.
One of those “what if” moments…
