You know you've found a great friend when this conversation just flows

I'm an extrovert and have been my entire life as far back as I can remember. This doesn't mean that I am not a bit uncomfortable in certain situations such as when I am new in a town though and this situation was something that I encountered a LOT growing up because my family moved a lot when I was a kid. Also, my first job after college was a traveling job which would result in me being in new cities every couple of weeks to a month and being introverted would have resulted in a great deal of loneliness if I wasn't willing to strike up conversation with strangers.

Some people are receptive to this and others are not so much. I'm not going to lie: There have been instances where my outgoing nature has nearly gotten me in trouble but mostly this was because I started to talk to a female in a new town being completely unaware that she was also at that same bar with a very insecure boyfriend. In all but a few of those situations though, I was able to fire up a conversation with the jealous boyfriend in a way that made him realize that I really meant no harm: One of those exact situations with jealous boyfriends resulted in me becoming really good friends with said guy and I still keep in touch with him to this day even though it has been nearly 20 years.

I meet a lot of people because my life is transient: Some are great people, some people I only talk to once and then avoid them in the future because they are cray-cray (there are a lot of those types in the expat communities around the world for some reason) and then there is another category of people that I can see immediately that we are going to get along swimmingly.

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Yesterday I went to go hang out with a guy that I met in a bar with his girlfriend when they both moved to Da Nang around 8 months ago. Currently, the city is in lockdown so we have to be at least somewhat careful about where anyone meets but for this meetup we simply sat at some cement tables that are located outside of his condo building. I don't know exactly what the "rules" are right now during lockdown, but it seems to be "ok" if it is just a couple of people sitting somewhere provided that this is not in a public space - it is kind of strange how it works because park bench = not ok whereas a seating arrangement that is essentially the same thing on private property is just fine.

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Anyway, we had planned to get together and have a few beers at this bench and as soon as we sat down the conversation just started flowing and resulted in one of us heading down to the mini-mart to get more beers as we were not done and this was after an hour. Then another hour had passed and we were still chatting away and needed to go on a second beer run. The next thing I know we are 8 beers deep and we stopped not because we were done talking but because we both know that 8 beers is more than enough.

The topics we covered ranged from cycling, life in Vietnam, our pasts, movies, crypto, our pasts, and simply life in general and there was no a single moment during those several hours where there was dead silence or either one of us searching for a topic. I've been in situations with friends of mine where there are a bunch of us sitting around and people just seem to struggle for anything to talk about and well, at those times I start to feel as though I am a court jester because it is always me that comes up with topics and even though it appears as though I enjoy this, I do not. I tend to avoid these people if they are on their own because I know damn well that the conversation is going to be a struggle - and that's not fun now is it?

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There are only a few people on the planet that I can sit with and be able to come up with topic after topic and have both of us engage in the conversation in a way that is entertaining to both of us for a long period of time and when I do have the chance to meet up with these people it is just glorious. So when I do meet someone like this I tend to hang on to them because more often than not, this isn't the case: Most people just don't meld like this.

So when I run into someone like this I tend to hang on to them forever because I think there are only a few people in the world that this is a possibility with. Some people's personalities just mesh in exactly the right way.

Do you have friends like this in your life and do you experience the same phenomenon? I would like to believe that I am just so good at talking to people that this ends up being true with everyone that I meet but conversation is a two-way street and I don't think it really matters if both people are introverted or extroverted - it is just the luck of the draw about whether or not 2 people simply "work" together.

Do you have people like this in your life? I only have a few and it is always a joy when I see them. Unfortunately for I think most people, there are only a handful of others out there that this is possible with. I am just lucky and happy that one of those rare finds happens to live in this city the same time that I do.