Thursday 14 November 2019

Six degrees of separation

They say that we are only six, or fewer, social connections away from anyone else.  I'm beginning to think it is true!  It always seems that whoever you meet knows someone that knows someone who knows you.  

Today a lady who I've never spoken to before came up to me in the Zumba class and said 'oh, I found out at the weekend that we have a mutual friend, you used to work with her at the school' and this happens so often.  The town we live in isn't particularly small but it does seem that we all have a lot of mutual acquaintances.  

On Saturday the leader of the volunteer group that Paul works with at our local Country Park invited all the committee and their wives for dinner at his house.  I was seated opposite a guy who is new to the committee and I've certainly never met him before.  We were chatting about where he had lived before he moved to Stortford and he said he moved here from Broxbourne.  "That's a coincidence" I said, "I used to work in Broxbourne".  I had worked for a travel tour operator called OSL and Wings and we were based in a large tower block on the High Street there so I knew he would have known about the company.  He was describing where he lived in relation to the OSL building and it sounded familiar.  Very familiar.  Turns out he was the neighbour of the lady who was our office secretary who was, and still is, a very good friend of Paul's cousin.

It's quite an interesting thing to think about and I have two rather famous connections which are both less than six people away!  My son Jon went to school with a boy who used to live opposite a family who had a son who was very keen on football.  In four small steps I can link myself to David Beckham!  

But possibly one of the most unusual short connections is this one - my son is married to Sophie, whose dad designed a website for the Dalai Lama.  How obscure eh?

The lady who lives opposite me has a granddaughter who goes to a local gymnastic class and when she went to watch an end of term display, she was chatting to Rod Stewart and his wife who were there as their son was in the same class.

Do you have anyone famous within six social connections to you?  Think about it, I bet you do!




5 comments:

Ruth said...

Haha, great post - particularly the link to the Dalai Lama! I have a friend who works as a Sports Anchor for an international TV company - does that count?

Patio Postcards said...

Interesting connections - your post gave me quite a smile this morning. I must sit & think about any connections I may have, which I don't think I do ...

onceuponatimehappilyeverafter.com said...

It really is a small world. I used to tell my daughters that if they misbehaved in school, I would find out about it before the school day was over because our area of El Paso is so close-knit. I proved it true because my younger daughter skipped school one time with her boyfriend - ugh - and the attendance clerk was a friend of mine and she called me immediately. When I picked Lauren up from school, she began crying and apologizing for something she had done and I told her I already knew. She was flabbergasted.

A friend was telling me about a house her son bought in Memphis, actually a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. I asked her if the area was called Bartlett, and she said it was. She said he lived on a street that was like an 'outer space' name. I asked if it was Galaxy and she said it was. I asked if the house he bought was on a hill, split level with a basement. She replied yes. Turns out her son bought my childhood best friend's parents' house!!

Aren't these kinds of things fun? Elvis Presley's jeweler somehow created a ring my father designed for my mom!!

Barbara Eads said...

Actually, living in "Music City" we have those connections to the "stars" all the time!! I had a personal trainer whose mother sang back up for Lynrd Skynard. My designer's sister was married to Phil Vassar. Brad Paisley and I share the same central vacuum repair
company. We belong to the same club as Alan Jackson and Reba McEntyre. Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman go to my church. The list goes on. Definitely easier to be connected living here.

alexa said...

Gosh, I'd need to do some thinking about that ... Connections are indeed fascinating.