The Fleeting Connections We Make When We Travel

I like the surge of excitement that flows through me when I catch someone’s eye. There’s that moment of wonder. Who are they? Where are they going? What’s in their luggage? How many stamps have they collected on their passport? I check the hand. No wedding ring. I scan their face for an indication of age. Divorced? Single? Is their trip for fun, work, or something more complicated like finalizing a divorce or attending their mother’s funeral?

When I was 18, I was sitting alone in an airport waiting for my flight to Tucson. I was moving there, I thought. I kept stealing glances with a handsome traveler. I stood up to board my flight. He came up to me and said, “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” then walked away. I never saw him again, but I couldn’t get the experience out of my mind.

Last week I flew to Houston, and due to layovers and exchanging a later flight for a $300 travel voucher, I ended up visiting four airports in one day. At the bar I met a businessman named Luke. We bonded over dry martinis and similar music tastes. He was wearing an expensive business suit and Nike dunks.

“I usually never talk to anyone when I travel but this — this is exciting,” he said as he programmed my number into his iPhone. We said farewell as I left to find my gate. Every time I travel, I long for something similar.

On the plane I got to thinking. I thought about the other travelers I talked to in the 24 hours I was traveling from the hotel to the many airport bars I sat in. I thought about the street performer from San Francisco who told me my horoscope. I thought about the woman who asked me to pray with her before her flight. I thought about the grad student on the way home to see her parents, the 60-year-old female artist who told me at 28 I was in the prime of my life, and about the engaged couple that was headed to Mexico City on a backpacking trip before eloping.

The experience of meeting strangers and waiting together to head to unknown departures creates a feeling I long for outside of the airport. If only I could find that human connection beyond the glass windows overlooking the incoming flights. This post was originally published at Thought Catalog and is reprinted here with permission.