What a small, small world

So basically I'm convinced the New York is the smallest city in the world. Meaning that the frequency with which situations arise wherein people have mutual friends or some uncanny connection is kind of unreal. This is probably best illustrated with a few examples.

1) The other night we were out at Naked Lunch (a bar) and I was with mostly Penn people and then Alexandria (who went to Auburn and is from Tennessee) and Rob (who went to Tennessee), and everyone I was with goes to my church. So we run into this other group of people, also predominantly from our church, which isn't all that unusual since it's a big church, but still... BUT Alexandria knew several of these people from before NYC, AND the one guy did two years at Auburn and two years at Penn, so he knew not only her but nearly everyone I was with. Weird. Auburn and Penn???

2) I was at DRod's one night at a little get-together, and it was me and a couple of his friends from home in Tampa, none of whom I knew. So I got to talking to this one girl and we went through the usual questions of where do you live in the city, where did you go to school, where do you work, etc. So when I asked her where she worked she replied, "Beyond Interactive." And I sat there thinking, gosh that sounds familiar, but I can't place it. So I asked her what the company does, and she told me they do online marketing for various companies. And then it hit me- that's where Anastasiya works! So I asked her if she knew Anastasiya, to which she replied, "Yeah, I work 2 cubicles down from her." Unbelievable.

And perhaps the best one of all...
3) My teammate on my project, Susan, and I were doing an on-site visit at a cosmetic dermatologist's office in the city, and we were talking to one of the nurses there about various procedures, her role, how the office runs, etc. At the end, I asked her where she was from, and she replied the name of her suburban Chicago town. Susan all of suddens perks up and says, "Wait, where did you go to high school??" As it turns out, Susan and this woman went to the SAME HIGH SCHOOL in the same podunky little suburban Chicago area. Not only that but they GRADUATED THE SAME YEAR. Um, talk about crazy. The icing on the cake was when they were trying to figure out how they had never met (well, they're graduating class was 400, so it's understandable), and what they did in high school. Turns out this woman was on the cross country team in freshman and senior years... and Susan was on the team sophomore and junior years. Seriously.

I love New York.