I was on Facebook recently when someone I knew in college posted a comment to something one of my local friends had written. Turns out they knew each other in elementary school. Anybody else discover that two people you know also know each other, and that that connection has nothing to do with you?
Friend #1 and I went to high school together in Oklahoma in the 1980’s.
Friend #2 and I met through a USENET newsgroup in the 1990’s. As long as I’ve know him he’s lived in Boston.
After I had them both friended on Facebook, we discovered that Friend #1 and Friend #2 had both been in the same Chicago theater troop for a while.
I got friended the other day by a guy I went to college with, so today I decided to look up one of the other few friends I had from college.
So I friended this other college guy, and looked at his wall. Turns out that few days ago, he friended my boyfriend’s BFF and commented on his wall. The comment mentioned my boyfriend even! (nothing bad)
Clicking around, I found out that BFF’s girlfriend is also friends with one of my friends.
If boyfriend would ever get on Facebook, I’d have a really small network 
Heh, even before Facebook. In college, my first date (and since then on my friend) turns out was high school best friend to one who was one of my closest friends in elementary school.
And even outside Facebook. One of my capoeira buddies is best friends with some of my belly dancing companions. Another one of those capoeira buddies knows all the same guys I know from going to Latin Night. In his case, most of them are his coworkers.
My co-worker went to elementary school with my husband and one of our friends from church. We discovered that only after we’d been working together nearly two years! And after she and my husband had seen each other a handful of times (when he came to my office, etc.) as adults.
Friend #1 = young coworker, a sweet girl and good friend.
I was looking in Facebook at a photo she had posted a comment on and it took me about 10 seconds of staring to realize she was commenting on a photo of MY COUSIN. Who I wasn’t even Facebook friends with!
I ran to her office and demanded to know what she was doing commenting on my cousin’s photo. Turns out, her best friend from college is married to him! She was maid of honor in their wedding (which I did not attend). They were coming to visit the next weekend!
Now, Kentucky isn’t a large state, but I had no idea that I knew or was related to everyone in it!*
*shut up
Here’s a really convoluted one:
1999: A guy I’m dating introduces me to his coworker, Raver Guy.
2001: I meet Charming Mofo on an online dating site. We fail miserably as a couple, but decide we’re fantastic as friends.
2004: Travel up to a three-day party with my cousin. We’re supposed to meet up with some of her friends there, one of whom turns out to be Raver Guy.
2005: At a party, Charming Mofo introduces me to Raver Girl, his good friend from high school. As we talk, I put enough pieces together to realize that Raver Girl is not only Raver Guy’s GF, she’s also the one who introduced him to my cousin.
It makes more sense when you can draw out a chart with all the connections. However, suffice to say that it’s really quite weird to realise that even in a big city like Toronto, I can usually find a common link with most people in my age range.
My husband is a PT and one of his co-workers is expecting a baby. The co-worker has an unusual last name and they were discussing what the new baby’s name is going to be. My husband said, “How about Dave unusuallastname?” The patient he was treating said, “I used to know a Dave unusuallastname.” The co-worker said, “Was this in Cincinnati?” “Yeah.” “Did he work for IBM?” “Yeah! I worked with him about thirty years ago!” “That’s my Uncle Dave!”
My best friend from the neighborhood and my best friend from school (who did not know each other) ended up dating best friends in college and double-dating.
And I walked into work for the first day at two different jobs only to find people I’d gone to school with. Both bosses were gobsmacked.
Neither of those compares, however, with the time my wife was set up on a blind date with her cousin :eek:
A guy I dated in college, J, used to be engaged to a girl, K, who (at the time) was engaged to P, who was the older brother of my first boyfriend ever, D.
When I started dating J, I ran into P (he was still friends with his ex and her fiance) and it was like, whoa!
A few years ago I was on the phone with my sister, and she said “Oh my god, guess what? There was an announcement in the Herald (local paper back home). Stuart Y. and Brenda Z. are getting married!”
My first thought was “Oh, that’s nice, two people I went to school with are getting married…” It took a minute to register that these two people should not know each other.
See when I was twelve, our family moved to a new town about 200 miles away. Stuart was in my class at the old school. Brenda was in my class at the new school.
I’m not in touch with either of them anymore, but that was an eerie experience. Like worlds colliding or something.
I’ve had a couple.
I had just started at a new high school, and struck up a friendship with a classmate, R. One day, we were at the Rapid station on the way home, and he was telling me stories of D&D games he’d been in. At one point, I piped up, “Wait, did you try to seduce Tiamat at this point? And roll three twenties in a row and succeeded?” “Yeah, how did you know?” “I’d already heard that story from J in my Boy Scout troop.”.
The other one: I’ve known B for as long as I can remember-- We met we were toddlers, when he and his mom lived about a block away. Well, one day when we were teens, Mom and I were visiting him and his mom, and B’s mom starts saying about how B wants to go to a party hosted by some fellow he’d met online (way in the early days of “online”, a dial-up BBS), and she’s worried about it and doesn’t know if she should let him. Mom asks if she knows this other fellow’s name. Turns out that the other fellow, D, had been in second grade in Mom’s class, the family kept in touch, and I was in the same Cub Scout den as him.
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Ex bought some old computers on eBay from some place interstate (roughly 500 miles away). Former roommate of the seller contacted him about one of the machines, they got talking, former roommate arranged to come and visit with his wife. He’d met the wife on the net and had moved to Melbourne to marry her, so he was only living 100 miles from us. While the guys played with their old computers, I spent the afternoon hanging out with the wife, who whinged the whole time about her daughter’s boyfriend Matt. Finally, I asked “Matt [Surname]” and her jaw fell open. Yep, her daughter’s boyfriend was my brother’s highschool best friend (I knew there couldn’t be two Matts who were that insane). Matt had moved to Bendigo some years earlier and that’s where her daughter was living - so, 200mi from where I live, and 100mi from where she lived.
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My friend’s sister in law has one of my classmates listed as a friend on Facebook. They’re from different ends of the state. I haven’t asked how they met.
I have two strange ones, both involving the same woman. And coincidentally, I found out about one of them just today, just before I saw this thread.
I was on a panel at Comic-Con this year with my company. A woman came up to us after the panel, and told us she was a fan of our work. We exchanged info to stay in touch (we both live in Los Angeles), and I eventually looked her up on Facebook to add her as a friend. There, I noticed we had a friend in common… a college friend of mine, from Boston, who now lives out here as well. Turns out they worked together and became close friends.
Necessary interlude: There was a guy I was very good friends with senior year of high school/summer before college, back in Baltimore. We were pretty inseparable that year, but we went off to different colleges, and just grew apart. Cut to several months ago, about 20 years later. I found him on Facebook, and noticed he was living out here in Los Angeles. I messaged him, and crazy enough, we were living in the same neighborhood for a while out here; probably walked past each other and never even knew it. I wrote him back, amazed at this coincidence, but he disappeared again and didn’t write me again for months.
Cut to about a week ago. He sends me a friend request out of the blue. I accept, and notice that we have a friend in common… the woman from story #1! I happened to have coffee with her today, and asked her how she knew him. Turns out she’s his cousin.
It’s amazing to me that this woman is connected to two people I know, from two totally different parts of my life, separated by thousands of miles.
Years ago, I was browsing around the facebook profiles of some old elementary school friends. I was looking around at the photos of one guy I knew from childhood, and hadn’t really seen him since then. Looking at one group shot photo, I did a double-take as I saw a current friend of mine also in the photo. It was pretty jarring seeing my childhood and adult life collide like that.
I’m certain that if I actually bothered to use those new-fangled social networking sites I’d find out about these sorts of things given that I’ve went to private schools most of my life that often have had revolving student bodies. Having people at one school know people from the other seems rather ho-hum; even in the vast tracts of suburbia and smallish class sizes, the probability that someone knows someone else is pretty high. However, a very strange thing happened to me in 4th grade or so: one of my classmates lived down the street from me, and it was months before we realized it. I suspect this sort of thing could only happen when you go to private school miles and miles away.
Friend #1: One of my best friends from college, became my roommate for a year after college.
Friend #2: A girl at work.
Turns out that they were pretty much raised together. They even slept in the same crib. I had no idea.
A lot of Facebook anecdotes. I wonder if there’s been a study of how often that happens.
I have another one. One of my closest friends from college lives down the street from my in-laws in New Jersey. That’s not the main connection, because they didn’t know each other, but they do have friends in common. What makes it more interconnected is that my wife knows her college roommate, because they both teach high school english in the same school district.
I’ve had a few instances on Facebook where Friend X and Friend Y, who do not know each other and in some cases are on different continents, are also both Facebook friends with Person Z, whom I do not know.
I’m separated from myself by three degrees.
For a while in the 80s and 90s I had both a full-time job and a part-time job.
I’d been working at the part-time job a few months before I learned the last name of one of the girls I worked with. Turned out I also worked with her sister at my full-time job!