Life in the big big city

And by that I mean Brisbane.
I've been out of big cities for a while - except on holidays of stay overs - it's been about 10 years since I lived in a city.
I knew I'd been institutionalised the day I looked up at the buildings on one of my trips back to Brisbane in my first 2 years away. When you do that, you know you're in trouble.
To my credit I didn't say "wheeeee-howdy them's is big buildin's!" but it was close.
I was wearing what is essentially a cowboy hat at the time, so it was just all over not a good look.
So Strike 1

Then a few years later I was sitting in a coffee shop in Adelaide and I found myself wondering where all the dressed up people were going. They were just going to work.
Strike 2

Today in the city I noticed that I kept thinking that there were people I know every where.
There aren't. I know maybe 5 people in this city. But I keep doing it.
Why? Because I'm honestly used to walking down a city street and seeing 3 or 4 people I know by sight.
I think that's essentially Strike 3 for the yokel indoctrination.

It just the chances of someone you see looking like someone you know and BEING that person are actually pretty high in a small town.
In a bigger city, obviously not so, but it takes a while to counter that "psychological expectation management" as you are half way to saying hello before your brain kicks in and says "hold up buddy, that's not them" and then you remember that you a really long way away from everyone, and you get the inevitable pang of sadness.
Well not immediately, but after a few months...Or maybe I should just become the sort of person who says hello to strangers.
It would be good for me, except, I don't think I want to be friends with the sort of people who are ok with stingers walking up to them and starting a conversation, so that would be kind of pricing myself out of the market at the outset.

I guess I would never want to be in a club that would have me a member...but there is defiantly a mathematical explanation.
In Alice Springs you know a LOT of people by face. It's a small town. If someone goes to the same pub as you on roughly the same nights of the week...you will get to know them. More to the point, you will meet them and then say "ok....so how do we already know each other?" and in 23 minutes you've worked out that you were essentially engaged to his sister or something.
As a result when you see someone from Alice, you tend to go "hey!" and then your brain tries very very hard to work out their context.
I did exactly that once in Darwin, brain went "we know that chick really well" mouth went "hey!" she said "I used to work in the newsagent." so clearly it's not just me that does it....

It's a lot like when my sister came home from 3 years

being drunk

teaching in a small town in Japan.
When we got home from the airport, we walked down the shops. Mell kept going to introduce herself to everyone, as she had become accustomed to being part of a small community of westerners, so everyone was essentially a friend-in-waiting. She'd gotten used to being the minority.
I think in Darwin everyone's a minority, so we all just got used to it. My friend who came to live there for a while actually called it "an ex-pat community in Australia" and that about sums it up. And to a degree explains the drinking.

Right now though, I'm going to go and hug that woman over there who looks like my ex....you never know.
KFS