You know those strange moments when you discover that the person you are talking to, who you don’t know well, happens to be a very good friend/relative/neighbour of somebody you know from an entirely separate walk of life? I am always astonished when a random conversation leads you indirectly, often via a massively circuitous route to a common link….especially those links between friends who live in other countries.
I LOVE it when it happens – it makes the world feel like a much smaller place – a little global village of networks that we are all somehow linked to if and if you could hover from above and map it out it would look amazing – like something out of Avatar.
Yesterday, I have to say, I had the strangest conversation with a friend of one of my children. We were discussing our recent trip to Sarawak and how amazing it was – especially our jungle trek. “Oh, one of my mum’s best friends has been there – he ended up getting a leech on somewhere really unfortunate – one of his balls to be exact” he said to me.
“OH. How strange! I said. “I heard that story the other day from a friend of mine who knows him really well – he was telling the leech on the testicle story to her only the other day”…..
…and of course it turns out it’s the same person and consequently through that story we have discovered that we have all manner of people in common.
Six degrees of separation – what is the funniest way you have discovered your link?
Anna
January 5, 2013Yes, these things are funny. A year and a half ago one of my husband’s oldest friends met a girl, fell in love with her, and proposed, all in a matter of four months. The girl happened to be in Toronto on a business trip for a week. She was having lunch at an outdoor patio. She dropped something, he picked it up, they started talking.
Fast forward to Xmas 2011. I meet the bride-to-be for the first time (she lives in Germany)and realize that she is from the same obscure little town in Germany that I resided in for four years. Her and I shriek for like a minute. Next we realize that she and my sister had attended the same high-school. More shrieking
At the formal engagement party a few days later we meet the bride’s older brother, who had also gone to the same high-school. I had brought my sister’s class photo with me, just in case. The brother of the bride takes one look at the picture and flips out, because he is on it – it’s his class.
Turned out that not only did he remember my sister, he thought the world of her.
He insisted that I call and invite my sister to the party. She came in her skating attire (she was out skating) and they spent the whole evening reminiscing.
Family Affairs
January 6, 2013OMG that’s amazing. Love it. Lx
SusannahS
January 7, 2013I had “stalked” a local author with whom I had a slight social acquaintance, as in we were often in the same places at the same time, and arranged to meet for drinks so she could sign copies of her newest book for me to give as gifts. We quickly discovered that her boyfriend was teaching a class that I was taking at the time, we were from the same hometown, had attended the same private school and that her father and my grandfather were very good friends. Such a small world!
Family Affairs
January 7, 2013How Lovely x