Sometimes having a blog with a readership in single digits is an advantage

So my boss Paul just had lunch with his friend [EDIT: a prominent DC journalist]. So anyway they were walking around the office, and Paul introduced us. As I extended my hand, I said "Nice to meet you." To which he replied: "Good to see you." Then, during the course of our short and somewhat stilted conversation, I made it clear that we had not, in fact, met before, though we had both attended the Washington Monthly holiday party at Paul's home (you begin to get a sense of the verbal fireworks on display). And yet, when we brought the conversation to a close moments later, he again returned my "good meeting you," with a "good seeing you."

Am I the only person who finds this weird? I've always thought that if you've never met, the appropriate expression is "good to meet you," or "nice to meet you," or, pace Kate, "how do you do?" But definitely not "good to see you." Coming after my "nice to meet you" it seems to imply a sort of rebuke, as if we had met before and I've offended him by forgetting. Actually the rebuke seems more like that we both secretly know we haven't met before but I've somehow slipped up by making this explicit, and thereby puncturing the mutually advantageous fantasy that we all know each other because we're all these connected DC journalist-type people. Or maybe that's not quite it, at least not always, because the other week I had breakfast with this lawyer/lobbyist guy who I had called for a story, and in this case it was clear that not only had we not met before, but that we move in sufficiently different circles that there could be no expectation that we had met before, and that neither of us would have had anything to gain from pretending we had. And he said "good to see you" too. He was Southern, so maybe it's a Southern thing. Like a Southern attempt to appear less formal and more down-home or whatever. Is [EDIT: the prominent DC journalist] Southern? I just don't know.

UPDATE: No he isn't. He's [EDIT: from the northeast] I'm more confused than ever.