That's the best part of the story! It was perfect timing, and we're all benefiting from it. Most likely without that event, Bitcoin would have been slow to achieve all the success it has now.
Yes yes! Like fillippone said, it was the major difference between us (me at least) and him. I was still doing boring thing when he was innovative enough to try and buy something with bitcoin, when it was too difficult to buy something with bitcoin.
Unfortunately, I was in the exact same situation as you, unfortunately I discovered Bitcoin after. He was the first, which means that over 7 billion people were doing different things than Laszlo and were not trying to buy with Bitcoin.
This is my small consolation.
