Funny / charming / cute

Beach poker

Coincidence level: 2/10 Category: Funny / charming / cute

I decided to take an Uber to a beach workout in LA with people I’d never met before. I found out about the workout because they were a part of a global group of avid runners – a group that I had worked out with when I’d been living in Barcelona.

And how did I connect with this group in Barcelona? Funny story there – I met a girl in a pole dance class who invited me to run a 5K with her the next day, and spontaneously, I did. From there I’d also meet a couple other good friends, one of whom was a handsome Italian chef who took me on his motorbike all the way to Tibidabo, an amusement park with a beautiful view atop the city.

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Purple Reign

Coincidence level: 3/10 Category: Funning / charming / cute

Once I very briefly dated a Swedish judge. She was impossibly beautiful, with auburn hair, and had been working as a judge in Stockholm at a young age — in her late 20s. An odd thing for Americans to fathom, but not particularly outrageous for Swedes.

We met in New York while she was doing an international law degree at NYU, and we’d have scenic dates like a late night stroll across the Williamsburg bridge after a sultry cocktail bar in the Lower East, and lavish French brunches in the West Village followed by a public makeout session in Washington Square Park.

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Loft party tattoos

Coincidence level: 2/10 Category: Funny / charming / cute

Once I ended up at a party at a guy’s loft in the Lower East. I had arrived around 5AM with some party friends, the party had started around 3AM, according to some new friends I met there.

This was one of those lofts that the elevator opened into, there was an artist doing live pencil drawings of everyone there, some famous graffiti artist friend who’d tagged the wall with a flourish, and it was full of characters such as club owners and sexy female ministers (I’m not making this up).

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Hawaiian stars

Coincidence level: 3/10 Category: Funny / charming / cute

On New Year’s Eve, on the beach on the west side of Maui, near Lahaina, I ditched plans to go surfing and instead posted up and read a book and chatted with a stranger for a few hours watching the sun set.

“I saw a shooting star,” my beach companion said to me after as we gazed up at palm tree silhouettes and what seemed to be as many stars as I’d ever seen all together, littered across the most gorgeously clear night sky.

“Really?” I exclaimed, delighted but also a tiny bit incredulous. “Are you sure it wasn’t a plane?”

“Yes,” she said. “I just saw another one.”

“I’m jealous,” I said, having never seen one before. “Is it common to see them here?”

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Cleopatra

Coincidence level: 2/10 Category: Funny / charming / cute

Once in Tokyo, I met a Palestinian artist around 5AM clubbing in Shibuya. She was one of those people who was in Japan for the shibari and love hotels and the whole weirdness of the experience. Most likely she’d been tripping when I met her.

One night we met up to have dinner and drinks and ended up at a public bath house. We were both heavily tattooed (hers much bigger and more visible than mine–dragon down her back sort of thing). A couple of bath house attendants approached us while we were in a jetstreamed bath, pointing to our tattoos and speaking to us in Japanese.

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Name couples

Coincidence level: 5/10 Category: Funny / charming / cute

Names have often appeared to me in pairs. I’ll offer up a few quirky examples through the years. They get better in ascending order.

1. Once, I was working a job in New York for a big media company, and the woman who sat directly next to me happened to be from my exact hometown in Michigan, and her birthday was three days off from mine. We’d never met until that job in New York. If that weren’t enough, there was another girl who sat kitty corner to us who had my same first name (nothing out of the ordinary). But the girl with my same name was dating a guy named Gabriel; I was dating a girl named Gabriella. Hehe.

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The apple

Coincidence level: 8/10 Category: Funny / charming / cute

When I was in Croatia in mid-October 2018, I made a conscious decision to start eating apples for breakfast. I did this after reading a nutrition book. I’d never actually eaten apples for breakfast before. Actually, I hardly ate apples ever. Or fruit. Oh, how unhealthy I was then.

I started this in Montenegro, and then in Dubrovnik – buying apples in the morning on a couple of consecutive days.

Two days later I meet some friends in Split.

We’re all sharing a bottle of wine at the sea. At 2AM.

Lo and behold, an apple—a perfect apple—rolls in with the tide and comes right to me.

AT FUCKING 2AM.

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