It's such a small world...

I don't know if I've ever really noticed that it's such a small world, but this is probably because I keep meeting new people and I find the whole process almost endlessly upsetting. I'm quite a nervous, private person underneath the brash exterior. I grew up in the middle of nowhere reading books in my room and listening to the radio. I prefer small groups of good friends to wide groups of strangers. If an extrovert is someone who feels invigorated after spending time with large groups of strangers, then I'm pretty much as introverted as you can get. I cover it up relatively well, I suppose. Dunno.

Anyway, my point is that the world is continually upsetting me about how large it is, rather than how small - but I suppose even I can point to a few weird anomalous coincidences. The other day I was on a train to my parents, for example, and there was a woman on the train I hadn't seen in ages. And I'm forever getting on planes back and forth from the US and bumping into people I know on them. I went to Seattle a few weeks ago and discovered Bobbie Johnson from the Guardian was returning from a completely different event on the same plane. If we weren't both completely exhausted we'd probably have talked more.

Times when I've been recognised seem to be the weblogger equivalent of small world syndrome (reading Derek's comment and Haughey's). I'm not sure that's really particularly good evidence for a general small world syndrome thing, but it's nice to talk about.

Buying things in shops is my favourite. I bought something from Square store in London and the guy behind the counter recognised me. I took a picture of him and put it on my site to punish him for embarrassing me in public, but I don't think he realised it was supposed to be embarrassing. I remember a particular experience when I got an e-mail from a guy whose weblog I read saying that he'd seen me on Oxford street with my mum tying up my shoelace. That was interesting...