I met him in a hostel in Madrid. He didn’t initially catch my eye — amongst people of all ages and backgrounds I wasn’t too pressed to talk to the fellow San Franciscan. But over multiple days, multiple nights, multiple experiences of watching everyone around me get drunk in the common area, I started to notice more.
Small, “throwaway” reaction lines can sit with you for so long... it’s a butterfly effect kind of situation. The unpredictability makes me uneasy.