It's a Small World Afterall

"In the 1920’s a writer (Karinthy) took note that technology (travel, communications, etc) was growing at a rate that would soon allow for global social networking. Karinthy wrote that soon you could take any one individual’s acquaintance and through 5 acquaintances of their acquaintances you would be able to “connect” anyone in the world. This is when the “six degrees of separation” idea began."

I don't know about all that...but what I do find very interesting is what a small world it really is. With the advancement of technology, and the social networking via the internet nowadays.....I am forever amazed and awed at how we are all intermingled among ourselves, without even knowing it.

Now..I've always been one to "know someone that someone else knows" but thanks to Facebook, my eyes have really been opened to this fact much more lately.

Case(s) in point:
1. This first struck home (really hard) with me when I added a friend from my church on Facebook. Janis is someone I know here in Hope, but I saw that we had a "mutual friend"...Vondah. Vondah lives in Colorado, and I've known her for years, but only online. We share the same diary/blog site.
When I inquired as to how Janis and Vonduh knew each other I found out that years ago, their husbands served in the Army together in Lawton, OK. They went to church together as well. This further tickled my interest b/c *I* lived in Lawton, OK as a toddler!

2. One of my best friends, Barb, whom I also met online about 7 or 8 years ago grew up in the town I now live in. She's been gone from here for many years, but I now know many of her family and old friends since I've been here myself nearly 6 years. In fact..Barb and my boyfriend Greg worked together at the same radio station as teenagers long long before I knew either of them.

3. Another of my closest friends, Susan, lives in Oklahoma City. I've known her for 6 or 7 years, having also met online through our diary/blog site. (you can meet some amazing people on one of those things!--and she's the friend I went to visit last month, finally meeting in person for the first time.)
Well...there is a man she works with, in OKC, a friend of her's, that went to MY elementary school with me, in Hot Springs, 30+ years ago! He saw my name and recognized it in an email or facebook correspondence. He and I also share mutual friends from school.

4. About 3 years ago, I was flying to Phoenix to see my sister. There was a woman on the plane that I befriended, as she was terrified of flying and had noone with her. Turns out, she lives in Hot Springs where I grew up, and teaches at an elementary school close to my old home. (Cutter Morning Star---not the one I went to, but it's nearby). She is married to a guy that graduated from that school the same year I graduated from my school and had mutual friends with me then. (we probabaly ran in some of the same circles back then.) And I've since found out that they are friends with several guys that I hung out with in college. AND....the lady that was my daughter's 2nd grade teacher here in Hope, is now teaching with her at Cutter.

5. Most recently (as in, tonight), I got a friend request on Facebook from a girl I went to college with, and lived on the same floor of my freshman dorm with. She was from Glenwood, which back then, I'd really never heard much of. After college, my parents moved to Glenwood, and then I followed suit, moving there 4 years after that. Of course Candy was gone from there by then, having moved on as a lot of us do, and I never heard from her, until tonight.
Now...looking through her friend's list on FB..I see lots of people that *I* know from Glenwood as well...one even being a woman is the mother of one of Trey's classmates. We met when Trey and Carley were 3 yrs old and we shared the same daycare giver. Turns out..she went to High School in Hot Springs at Cutter Morning Star! We had mutual friends from there. She moved to Glenwood her senior year of high school, which is where she met Candy, the girl I went to college with. And Candy knows lots of the people I worked with or knew from the 10 years I lived in Glenwood.

6. And then there's Jeanna....who was the daughter of my pastor when I was growing up, and the sister of my first "love". We went to church together, but she was a bit older. We went to college together as well..but she was finishing as I was starting. I went to her wedding, and her husband wound up being the president of our college several years after I graduated from there..so she was still a big part of it. Now I see her on Facebook not only as my friend..but friends with other women I am friends with..much younger women...LaRissa, who along with her husband, came to Glenwood as a young married couple years ago to be our youth pastor. They moved on and now have 4children and live in Tx. Jeanna is also friends with the young girl who teaches across the hall from me at my school..a girl I just love to pieces.
I've known Jeanna since I was about 12...LaRissa since I was about 27, and Margrett for the past 4 years. They each befriend Jeanna while attending the same college I did...years later.

Small world.
It just amazes me how intertwined we all really are.