I finally met a good friend of mine ten days ago. He is an ex-coworker of mine. We were working together around two years ago. We never really worked together because we were always on different projects. Still, we went to the same office and had many interesting conversations on the office balcony. He is one of the reasons I went to work for that company in the first place. When I search for employment opportunities in a company, I research their employees and their activities outside work. If I encounter individuals with whom I share common interests or could potentially form friendships, I initiate discussions regarding progressing through the hiring process. While this may seem unnecessary for some, the team is essential to me since I believe it's the core of a good product and happy work time.
He was dealing with some personal stuff some time ago, and I wanted to meet him to catch up, see if he's doing alright, and chat about stuff because he's one of my favorite conversation partners.
So that day, I walked toward the center of Yerevan and remembered that he had an office on the way. I texted him to see if he was there, as he sometimes hangs out on Saturdays. He replied that he wasn't but suggested we met when he was available. We caught up a few hours later.
We went to a park near Cascade and spent some time there, talking about stuff. After that, we went to get some food. He nor I had any preferences, so we went to a fast food place nearby. After shortening our lives for a couple of seconds (or minutes, who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) by injecting junk food into our organisms, we went to a store to get something to drink. When we were at the cashier's desk, I noticed that they were selling a new collection of Clipper lighters!
I was thrilled to see that because I really love how Clipper designs their lighter collections. I bought five differently-styled lighters, and my friend asked me what I would do with that amount of lighters. I gift them to people I like :).
I was quite drunk the first time I gifted a lighter to someone. He found it funny and gave me his purple lighter back. This thingy progressed into my personality. Nowadays, if I happen to carry a collectible Clipper lighter when being around someone I like, I gift it to them. These aren't one-time-only gifts, though. A very good friend of mine lives in another city, and it became a tradition to give her my lighter whenever we meet :). I don't really remember how this became a regular thing; perhaps, because we don't meet frequently, I want to gift her the lighter whenever I get the chance.
This is a form of expressing love and telling people I'm glad they exist. It's weird for some. It's surprising for others. It's important for me. I guess this is a pretty sentimental behavior, but it's one of the sentimental things I don't mind doing.
Peace <3