Faces and stories, but no names.

When you walk into a lecture you recognise faces, you don’t know the names of these people but you recognise them, those of the female variety mostly. You build up a story about them, where they come from, what they do, what they like, and what they would look like with some satin lingerie on. You don’t even know their names, but what’s in a name? Some say it is what defines a person, what makes them who they are. After the summer break you can’t find some of the people you noticed before, they aren’t there, even though you thought of them you’ll never find out who they were, who they really were. Because you never asked them, because you never made the first move.

You talk to people, for weeks in succession you converse with them, without even asking their name. They tell you about their lives, what they are doing, how they love to do certain things with their free time. But when you leave them to go your separate ways, you stop and realise that you don’t even know their names.

Do you really need to know a person’s name to talk to them? Sometimes you talk to strangers, especially when you travel on the bus, they offload onto you, you offload onto them, and it’s a mutual relationship based on the fact that you will never see each other again.

You once found yourself in a deep conversation with a woman at a bookshop; you were talking about everything, politics, work, books, romance and much more. This time though, you made a point of finding out her name, but as you sit at your computer typing, you can’t remember her name and for this, you are disappointed in yourself, because you remember the criminal's names, but not her's.

You know a man, who is married to woman he met when he smashed into her car at a set of traffic lights, a chance encounter leading to over twenty years of marriage.

Everyone you meet is important; all it takes is a moment in a person’s life to change it.