I vow to be more open-minded when I move back home.  Hong Kong has taught me a valuable lesson in opening myself to the possibilities that something else great, better, or even fantastic can be waiting around the corner, if only I’m willing to open my eyes to see the light.  Tonight, I went out for drinks with a fellow Sassy blogger whom I’ve known for a few months; besides chatting at our writer events, we’ve never spent time together outside of Sassy.  We had a great time sipping on raspberry martinis and chatting about life; now with only 2 weeks left, I’m sad that she and I never agreed to meet up sooner.

I’ve met all of my friends in Hong Kong through a quirky girl with whom I used to work.  None of my closest friends are random girls I just went up to and said, “Hi, I’m Ashley, let’s be friends.”  Okay, so that’s a ridiculous way to meet people, but how hard is it to go up to someone you’ve never met before and make conversation?  Apparently really, really hard because almost no one I know does it…except in Hong Kong.

Here, I have randoms coming up to me all the time, asking for my phone number, asking to take me out on a date, telling me I’m beautiful…okay, I digress, that’s another story for another time.  But, for real, how brave are these guys to just walk up to a random girl and start chatting away?  Back at home that would NEVER happen!  If I was approached by a bartender, I’d be lucky!

I was at the Taipei airport recently with my friend Karen for a weekend trip away and a guy got in the elevator, asking which floor for departures.  He was an older gentleman and there was no need to converse with him because we only had 2 floors to go before he was getting out, but I answered his question, and then asked where he was flying to.  He answered and we had a quick chat about where we lived.  Nothing special, except to Karen who said she would have never gone further than answering the guy’s question, “Third floor.”  Now, I hadn’t thought about why I continued the conversation, but after it being pointed out, I realized that before Hong Kong, I probably also would’ve just answered and nothing else.  Aha, maybe this crazy HK experience has taught me something!

Now with this new found courage and the ability to make conversation with strangers, I, too can make more friends when I move back home.  It’s certainly a phenomenon to talk to people you don’t know in my neck of the woods, but it’s really the only way I’ll meet new people.  I have great friends in Sycamore already, but there’s bound to be other cool people, right?  Most definitely!