Who taught: Jake, Carol and Mark

Nice to meet you. (source: funny-cats-pictures1.blogspot.com)

Last week, I had dinner together with Jake, Carol and Mark, watching Univ of Pitt’s football game. As I walked up to the second floor of the restaurant, I saw a big group of people and one of them was Christian who is also one of my old colleagues. I thought Jake, Carol and Mark were all together with Christian’s group and was kind of confused to see so many people that I do not know at all. Looking for them, I realized that they were not within the group. They were sitting separately and the group was for Python programming language discussion.

Like an hour later, Christian came to us to say hello and chatted with us. Then, as he about to leave, he told me, “Hey! See you, Terry!” Then, I said, “Sure, Nice meeting you!” As soon as I said it, Christian and Jake were like, “What? Did you just say, ‘nice meeting you’?” “Yeah, what is wrong?” said I.

Do you see any issue with it? I mean, the word, meet, means literally, “come together” or “get together.” With that said, the sentence I said was perfectly fine. Don’t you agree? Well… Jake explained to me, “People say ‘nice meeting you’ when they meet for the first time.” He continued, “If you already know someone and you get to meet him/her again, you should say, ‘nice seeing you'” What the h**k?

Carol also told me a story of an episode of 30 rock, one of the famous tv shows in America, in which one lady tried to play a mind game with another guy, by trying to say “Nice meeting you,” even though she already met him beforehand. So, be careful with your choice of a word.

Another thing I want to point out is when to use “meeting” and when to use “to meet.” When you meet someone for the first time ever and introduce each other, then you should say, “Nice to meet you.” Then, you had a chat with him/her for a while and you need to say good bye to him/her as you leave the place, at that moment, you need to say, “Nice meeting you.” It is because ‘to verb’ implies the future whereas ‘verb + ing’ implies the past. Pretty complicated, huh? I am sure most American would not care this kind of subtle difference but that is the correct way. But, the point is do not make the same mistake I made. Sorry, Christian! I did not know that. Next time, I will remember to say, “nice seeing you.” It was really nice seeing you, Christian. Take care!