Tonight, Chris and I had dinner with his boss, who also happens to be Australian from Perth. They had been trying to arrange a get-together with their life partners for about a year and a half now, and that’s how long it takes people to arrange dinners today in this lovely metropolis we call New York City. The wait was worth it in the end, as it included a great dining experience with two bottles of wine at Laduree, endless revealings of Chris’s not so “polite and lovely” qualities, and discussions of Australians, Americans, politics, and travel.

It’s weird how when I meet most people that Chris likes, I always tend to like them. With his boss, it was like an immediate affection was developed. The way he delivered his speech, his general aura, and even his soft gaze on you as he speaks was so warming, kind of like his best friend in Melbourne. It almost felt like the same guy, except not.

I rarely meet people and like them right away. It just doesn’t happen that often, but it does happen with most of Chris’s friends. Even Aziz Ansari, in his latest book, says that when going on dates with new people, you generally can’t really make a solid judgment about whether you really like them until at least the sixth or eighth meeting.

How do you meet people that you like instantly? Does that possibility just decline as you get older, or do you just need a filter like a good life partner to help you find these people?