Friday, January 2, 2009

It’s a Small World…and It’s Getting Smaller!

The world is a small place and it seems that with each passing day, it is getting smaller. Last Friday evening, I was at home--reading, browsing on the computer and generally minding my own business--when a friend from work called me. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: “What number is your building?”
Me: “343. Why?”
Friend: “I’m walking into your building now.”
Me: “What are you doing here?”
Friend: “My friend CJ* lives in your building.”
Me: “No kidding…what floor?”
Friend: “15…15B”
Me: “OMG, I’m in 15P, I’ll meet you in the hall.”

A few minutes later, my friend and I were knocking on 15B, where he was expected by CJ and a friend of hers who was visiting from the Midwest for the weekend. In fact, her visitor (who answered the door) was a young guy whom I’d met at a L’Taken seminar in Washington, DC last March. (He and I are already Facebook friends.)

Although I didn’t actually meet CJ that night (she was getting ready to go out and not quite ready to “meet her public”), we’ve now become friends on Facebook, where we had 12 mutual friends right from the get-go. Eleven of them (from the ranks of the Reform Jewish world) were no surprise. The twelfth, however, was somewhat of an outlier…a friend and study-buddy from grad school who (aside from his friendship with CJ and me) has little if any connection to the Jewish world, let alone the Reform Jewish world.

When I asked him about it, he said, “Remember when I first came to your apartment and I said I've been to a party in this building? It was CJ’s! Weird. She used to work (and is friends with) two people from my softball team. Weird small world.”

Weird small world, indeed. But six degrees of separation? Nope…I’d say more like three!

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

No comments:

Post a Comment