I like to scan through the Friend Finder on Facebook. It suggests friends for you based on mutual acquaintances. Sometimes I find new friends, sometimes I find people I don't necessarily want to reconnect with. And other times -- twice, in fact -- I find people that know people I know but the people I know do not know each other. Clear as mud? Let me explain.
In the first instance, Facebook suggested I befriend Joe (not his real name, don't remember his real name, not important) because Joe was friends with my brother and one of my friends -- a friend I have never met face to face, but in fact, know from a message board. My brother and my message board friend do not know each other. Furthermore, my brother lives in Arkansas and my message board friend lives in Washington DC and will likely never meet each other. Very odd.
The second instance was tonight. Facebook suggested I befriend John (not his real name, do remember his real name, still not important) because John is friends with my friend Abby and my friend Ellie. Abby and Ellie do not know each other. At least, I don't think they do. I know them from very different circles that haven't ever crossed to my knowledge. But they do both live in the Denver Metro area so I suppose they could know each other and I just don't know it.
Anyway, all of this points, yet again, to our surprisingly small world of 6,760,844,960 individuals.
No, I didn't pull 6,760,844,960 out my ear. I got it from here. BTW, that number jumped by 30 in less than a minute. Fascinating. How do they do that?
3 comments:
how weird.
on a somewhat related note, i got a friend request from someone i know from online. never met her in person. however, she is friends with someone who i do know in person and not from online. furthermore, this person that i know IRL is not friends with any of the other online friends i have. it's a little disconcerting to have my RL and my IL collide like that.
Holy cow! It happened again! An online friend is friends with someone who went to the same high school I did. This is so weird.
Apparently, due to the internet and global communication, the six degrees has been reduced to 5. scary. Soon we are going to know everyone's business!
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