It's a Minuscule World

• Is it just me, or do other people find themselves saying, "wow, it's a small world" ALL THE TIME? I think I find reason to utter this phrase at least twice a week...and that's without even trying to find a reason. It seems like every one is connected somehow. It sometimes feels like I can find some random connection to every person I meet, which makes me wonder if the world was ever really that big to begin with. Here are a few examples I've had of this:
  
• I joined a book club last winter with about 15 women (only two of whom I knew previously). All in a matter of two hours at our first meeting, I had determined that one woman's husband(who just moved here from Oregon) is the cousin of my best friend from pre-school. I find out that another girl drives the exact same car as me, only after I find out that she actually lives in my same condo building. There have been numerous times that I have confused the other black Saab 9-3 with my own and actually tried to get in it a couple of times.
  
• A few weeks ago, over dinner, I find out that my date's family owns a bowling alley in Iowa. Growing up in a bowling alley myself, I've never met anyone else who actually had the job of spraying bowling shoes with Lysol or got the keys to the candy machine because his parents owned the place. I mention this weird coincidence to my best friend, who informs me that her husband, in fact, bowled at this SAME 8 lane bowling alley in rural Iowa for seven years before they moved to Minneapolis! "Yeah, he got to know the owner so well, we almost invited him and his wife to our wedding!" she tells me. Small world. I then go to a party with this date to his good friends' condo downtown (expecting to know no one). As it turns out, I was practically greeted at the door like Cheers greets Norm. "Ashley!" A guy who I knew when I was about 16 gives me a hug, hands me a beer, and introduces me to his fiance, who I played softball with and took dance classes with when I was younger. I then look at my beer mug engraved with two last names and quickly realize that the couple throwing the party (who I hadn't even been introduced to yet) were Skipper sweethearts who graduated a year ahead of me. Small world.
  
• I met a woman at a networking event in Plymouth a month or so ago. After speaking with her for a few minutes, we discover she lives in the building across the street from me and realize our balonies actually face one another. I find out what company she works for...a large company with many offices in the Twin Cities. I throw out the name of THE ONLY person I know who works for this company. "Yeah, he's my best friend! We are going salsa dancing together tonight."
  
• A few months ago, I developed a small (very small) crush on a guy who I had met once. I made the mistake of telling this to my mom and an even bigger mistake by telling her his name. (What was I thinking?) I proceed to get an email from my mom a week later while she is in London telling me that some woman who she is traveling with knows this guy's family. Apparently, her son went to college with him. Small world? Or maybe just a fine example of my mom talking about my business too much. How was that connection made anyway?
  
• When I was in college at University of Iowa, I remember going to visit someone in Grand Forks, ND for a weekend. While I was there, I was introduced to some guy originally from Illinois. "I know someone who goes to University of Iowa. I dated her in high school," he tells me. Okay, well it's a school of 28,000 student, I think to myself, so I doubt I know who she is. Go ahead pal, give it a shot. He tells me her name and my jaw drops. "Yeah, I know her. She's only my ROOMMATE!" Small world.
  
• One semester in college, I lived with 3 very good friends of mine. All of them were from Illinois, but in different parts of the state. After winter break, one of them came back to school with a videotape of a dance camp she had been to when she was about 15. We couldn't figure out why she was making us watch some video of a group of girls doing an unorganized dance without costumes. She paused the tape when it came to one part of the dance and pointed out the girl next to her. There, LINKED arms next to her in a kickline is our other roommate. Apparently they had crossed paths (or in this case, arms) before at a summer camp they both attended. Neither one would have remembered this if there weren't physical proof of their encounter.
  
• Five years ago, while in Campina Grande, Brazil, visiting an old exchange student my family had, I meet an American who is there as an exchange student. She is staying with the neighbors of the family I am there visiting. "You're from America! What state?" I ask her, excited to be speaking English with a fellow American.
  
  "Minnesota!" she says.
  
  "No way! What city?"
  
  "Oh, I'm from a town southwest of Minneapolis called Chaska," she tells me.
  
  Unbelievable. Small world. Literally in this case. I was in Brazil!

I seriously could go on and on with examples like these. Do you have them too? Think of how many other "small world" connections we can probably make if we just have these conversations with every single person we meet. Some you might have to dig deeper than others, but there's gotta be something there. Screw Kevin Bacon, I think there has got to be six degrees of seperation from just about every one in the world. Okay, at least in Minneapolis.