Last week I was working in an office that just consists of just men in Islington, London. Of course you might think there would be a lot of boys' talk around. And yes, there was. "Oh, look at her... she is fit" and "that bird is hot" and all of that common stuff.
But apart from that, there was a lot of girls' talk around, too. Man are they obsessed with their weight and stomach measures. I have never seen a bunch of girls being so worried about their bodies as they are.
It even went to that extent where they denied to have dinner.
Surprising thing: a pint of beer or a little chocolate always fits in.
I just don't understand men...
So when I sat down for a drink with Ellen last Sunday, we started talking about how weird this world is getting.
One minute later we realised that it has been weird the whole time. But with us living in such a protected environment and most of my friends without bad experiences, we get spoiled.
So in my everyday life where I sometimes get the time to watch the news or read articles, it seems that all the bad of the world is so far away. Thinking about it you realise it is just next door though. Many weird things happen behind the windows we look at when we pass houses. But to be honest: I don't really want to know. I feel comfortable in my little safe world. Ignorant? Selfish? Sure. But I'm pretty sure, I'm not alone.
Ellen told me about her holiday in Istanbul. She and her friend made a little excursion to an island and met an older German man who started telling them how he lives off the government but can luckily still afford his yearly holiday in Turkey. And "aaaah... aren't the women here great?!" Saying that to 2 young women is a pretty strange thing to begin with... continuing: "I have been married once before, you know..."
So he started telling the story about this Turkish librarian lady he got to know some time ago.
He offered to bring her to Germany and they got married.
So when she came over she pretty soon got annoyed with him not wanting to find a job ("why should I ?!") and so the whole thing did not work out and eventually he sent her back.
But for the 3 weeks she was there, he had "a lot of fun".
"When she came I just moved all the furniture aside, just the bed in the middle of the room and we spent whole days in there. You know, she was 40 but still a virgin. She was so ingenuous with everything she did."
This causes some unlovely pictures in my head I don't want to have.
Glad for the lady she got back home.
This is just a pretty harmless story when you think about what else goes on.
"So what have you two planned for tonight??"
Starting this with my last flight.
Sounds like I will never have one again.
I will though... most likely.
Many people seem empty, others look boring. The astonishing thing about the person sitting next to you on a plane though is that you could get to hear the most interesting story of your life.
Or at least you could hear about the most interesting professions, which in my case was practised by Moshe, a clown trainer from San Francisco, travelling to Barcelona to teach clowns how to be funny.
Asking him which countries needed to be trained the most, he answered, definitely Spain, Germany and Belgium.
Well, that's nice to hear. But you know, Clowns are not always my type of humour so I did not take it as an offense.
Then he put on his sleeping mask, stuck in his ear plugs and went to sleep until just before Frankfurt.
That's that.
I got very lucky to get a free ride from Manhattan to Newark Airport with someone I did not know.
Friend's friend's friend who changed his flight 2 hours before so we went on the same one.
Sometimes things go well and easy.
And even though I never knew this 27 year old Indian investment banker with very good manners and a slight british-indian accent before, it turned out there was a connection between him and me not only through our friends, but also could we draw a connection through work. And I have nothing to do with investment banking.
It looks like you can find connections almost anywhere if you look and listen carefully.
What do they say? Everybody knows everyone around 6 corners..
