Day 3: Falafel on the grass

Dan, full and happy after a falafel lunch

From the moment I saw the pannier, I was pretty sure this was going to work.

At approximately 12:30 pm PDT today, I wove my way past a horde of new college students crowding the sidewalk near Wells Fargo, waiting their turn to spin a wheel and win prizes including -- I kid you not -- Lays potato chips and two separate flavors of Ramen noodles. What message are we trying to send our youth? That the freshman fifteen is a graduation requirement? That American banks can no longer afford anything better to give away? What happened to pens?

I digress.

Once I'd parked my bike amidst the chaos, I walked a couple doors down the street towards a lunch date that promised food vastly more delectable than the deep-fried calories near the ATM. I was feeling a little guilty for having lured my new acquaintance into the heart of such insanity -- I knew that Sunrise Deli was usually packed at lunch, but I'd forgotten that this week was Orientation.

I've got to say, this project is making me appreciate the internet more than ever before. Recognizing a blind date used to involve carrying a flower or tying a ribbon in your hair; this time, Dan, a friend of friend, and I made sure to exchange links to photos of ourselves before our get together. I recognized him right away, towering above the fray like a beacon of serenity, largely unfazed though slightly in awe of the frenzy around us. We ducked into the deli to get food.

This was my first pre-arranged encounter, and it was a fantastic way to start. Dan was one of the first people to respond to the flurry of "please help me meet people" emails I sent out to everyone I could think of. He's the old pal of a college buddy who I haven't seen in years (hurray for casting a wide net). He was enthusiastic about the project, especially because he could relate; he'd been here 3 years and had little to show for it in the way of a social network himself.

One of the first things I noticed about Dan, beside the fact that he's very tall, is that the bag he was carrying was one of the nicest bike panniers I've ever seen. (For those who aren't aware, those are the special bags that hook onto the side of your bike and make things easy to carry.) I took this as an extremely positive sign: people who use bikes to commute around in their daily lives are as a rule people I very much like.

After ordering lunch (we both got the same thing -- falafel sandwich), we darted across the street to an alluring patch of grass on the Berkeley campus, and proceed to picnic and converse for at least an hour. Turns out the fancy panniers are a by-product of a 3,800 mile bike trip he did last year, from Seattle to Boston. Other cool things about Dan: he's a teacher; he did a stint in Americorps; he likes hiking and backpacking; he's a rather serious-seeming runner.

Our main topic of conversation was, however, The Encantada Project and its implications. This is becoming a pattern; I think I may have hit onto an underground stream of alienation running wide and deep. (That is not to imply that Dan is widely and deeply alienated. My impression was that he is not.)

The most knotty question of the afternoon: How do you make that leap from Acquaintance You Enjoy to Actual Friend? Repeated, shared experiences was our conclusion, but that's just the beginning of an answer. Without a structure that brings you together with regularity, how to you make sure that kind of contact happens?

Therein lies the rub, the systemic flaw of our highly mobile, encapsulated modern world. I'd like to say we vowed to transcend it, but it's possible Dan and I will, as usual, succumb to the twin forces of inertia and fear (of rejection, of intimacy, of awkwardness) and never hang out again. I hope not. We'll see. Either way, lunch was great.