“You see the name of a group, you laugh, you join, you never look at it again”

I have joined a ridiculous number of groups on Facebook and I don’t think I have ever looked at any of them again. Yeah, I thought they were funny at the time but I have never looked at a single one of them again. In fact, for most of them, I just pressed the ‘join group’ or ‘become a fan’ button and never even looked at the page.

Have you ever thought of the large number of people you see every day that you’ll never meet again, just like the many Facebook groups you’ll never even glance at again. Usually you don’t know their name either and when you pass them they may as well be robots for all the attention you pay them. However, they’re not robots and that’s what makes life interesting. The person you walked past when heading towards the shops could be your friend’s mum’s cousin’s friend or your teacher’s uncle.

In reality, you have no idea what links you have with the people around you and you will probably never see them again. However, even if you had seen them before would you really know? Was the guy in the queue behind you the builder working on the building next door? Did the lady serving you pass you at the bus stop yesterday? We will probably never know but sometimes it is just interesting to speculate.

Nevertheless, there are some people that you see everyday that you have no idea who they are. For example, there is this lady who walks past my bus stop each morning. I have no idea what her name is, I have no idea where she’s heading but I see her every morning heading into town wearing a red fleece. Also, there’s this guy I see waiting at another bus stop who I see out of the window every morning. Always waiting at the same bus stop with the same bag and the same smart clothes.

What I find odd is where you see these same people in other places when you’re so used to seeing them as part of your daily routine.Like the man who I see every day at the bus stop through my bus window. Sometimes I see him getting on the bus I get on after Jazz Band on Thursdays. Or maybe you see them just walking down the street casually in a totally different context to normal. It’s the same with teachers: seeing them outside of school is just surreal. I don’t really ever remember thinking that teachers lived at school as such, but seeing a teacher anywhere other than a classroom is strange. When it snowed a few weeks back, I am convinced I saw one of my teachers in my town. I was totally not expecting it as I sort of assumed he lived closer to school than the town which I live in which is a whole half hour from school. Anyway, I saw him and thought ‘that guy looks like one of my teachers’ and then as I walked past I sort of turned back round again thinking ‘hang on! That is one of my teachers!’ So odd!


So there are those people in your life that you see every day and talk to in many different contexts while others you rarely see outside a set area of your routine. Even more just pass you by. You’ll never know their name, you may never see them again but they exist... somewhere in the world living an alternate life that you crossed over to, even just for a second.