Day 9: The dessert table
I'm not one of those people who can just strike up conversations with any stranger, let alone make friends with someone I've never met before.
However, what I am good at is sampling all the food at the dessert table. And that's where I spent most of my time at a wedding I was attending.
Boyfriend and I didn't know any of the guests - but I did know my way around the brownies, which were delicious. And I wasn't the only one to notice them as I spot this girl going back and forth to the table for food as often as me.
"They're good aren't they?" I look up and she's there, smiling at me as she reaches for the brownies.
"Mmm. So good," I tell her, probably with my teeth half-caked in chocolate. "I've been trying everything here. Have you had the cookies there?"
"Not yet," she exclaims.
"Try that next before they all disappear," I tell her. She nods, and we split up to return to our respective partners.
Five minutes later, we meet again in the centre of the room and debrief more about the sweet selections on offer. Which then turned into more conversations about food, and then eventually introducing ourselves properly to each other and to each other's partners.
Eventually we did walk away from the desserts table, and continued our conversations, getting to know each other until we were one of the last few people still inside the venue.
"You guys look so cute together," she tells my boyfriend and I. "Let me take a photo of you two."
Suddenly flags in my head went up. What was I doing letting someone I don't even know the last name of, take a photo of me on their phone? It wasn't like I'd see them again. What would she do with a photo of a couple she barely knows?
We oblige (cause not many people take photos of Boyfriend and I together anyway) and smile nicely. She shows us the photo she's taken on her small phone and it looks alright.
"Let me take one of you guys" I tell her and her boyfriend, trying to drive my own awkwardness away. The very least she could have was her own photo on her phone.
The conversation begins to wrap up as we begin to be ushered out the door. They ask if we're going to the reception, which we were, and we said our 'See you soon's.
I got back into the car telling my Boyfriend how nice of a couple they were and how I really liked them. Friends, don't get me wrong, but isn't it rare how you could just have one-off meeting with someone and decide that you genuinely want to become their friend. When you're a young kid it's much easier to make friends with people and you're mates for years, but for me as I get older I find it's uncommon to connect with a person just through the art of conversation - and brownies.
When we got to the reception, it was all arranged seating and we were no where near the couple we had spent the past hour talking to. Instead we were around a group of new people that we didn't know, and clearly had to strike up conversation again. But talking to this group of strangers around our table's candle centrepiece wasn't the same. They weren't as stoked for the buffet meal as I was, clearly.
We sat through the reception politely chatting with everyone that mixed and mingled around our table. Some people you can tell you're polar opposites of, and some people you know just have nothing in common with. It was only near the end of the night where we crossed paths with the couple we met earlier, and began picking up our conversation where we left off.
"Let's get a photo together!" she tells me at the end of the night, and we pose for a cute selfie together.
"We look good!" she laughs, showing me the photo. "What's your name on Facebook? I'm gonna need to tag you in these pictures."
And that was not the last time I saw her.
All good friends can be found around good food. And I love the power that good food has on bringing good people together. Especially when it comes to brownies.
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For the month of January 2016, I'm writing 31 personal stories about things in my life I'm thankful for. See all my posts during my month of thankfulness here.
