Last week­end’s Sun­day Star Times Sun­day mag­a­zine had a fun essay by Leah McFall lament­ing how hard it is to meet-cute in Welling­ton — that is, have one of those love­ly roman­tic-com­e­dy style acci­den­tal meet­ings with the fel­low of your dreams, usu­al­ly involv­ing some­thing quirky like bagels or poo­dles. It’s impos­si­ble here because, as we all know, in Welling­ton every­one knows every­one.

The essay isn’t online (boo, Sun­day mag­a­zine!) but I thought it was worth shar­ing this bit, where Leah comes up with a mag­nif­i­cent metaphor for Welling­ton’s dat­ing scene:

It’s like when you step onto a 16-seat pro­pel­lor plane. There’s the guy at the top of the steps who rips your tick­et, stows your lap­top and pass­es round the Minties. Then he puts down the lol­lies, tugs on an ear­piece, strides to the cock­pit and starts the igni­tion. That’s what you’re deal­ing with, in Welling­ton: the man who is every­where. How can you meet-cute with that? You’ve met him before.

Being a recent arrival to these parts, there are still many social dots I’m yet to con­nect, but I’m already find­ing strange con­nec­tions in places I’d least expect it.

But per­haps there’s an advan­tage to this small-vil­lage scene? After all, if every­one knows every­one, you’re soon going to hear what your pilot’s crash rate is like.