Of course we all understand that Facebook has ways of gathering information about us that we have so “freely” given to it/them, etc. And there is so much we could say on that subject. But that is not what this blog post is about. This is about something completely different, and completely weird, to me. If I didn’t know better, I would call it a “coincidence.” But since I don’t believe in coincidences, per se, not sure what to call it or where to put it, so I am temporarily, tongue-in-cheekly, putting it onto Facebook, since it plays an interesting part.
I was invited to a concert the other night by a friend, to which I happily attended and which I enjoyed. Since my friend knew the star of the show, we went backstage to great him. Standing in front, and to the side of me, with his back toward me, was a man. He was a portly man and from the back of his head and his body type, he reminded me of a friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time. In order to identify if this person was my friend or not, I reached my head around his body and took a good look at the side of his face.
The man was deep in conversation and didn’t seem to notice, at least he didn’t turn to look at me at all. But I got a good enough look at him to know that he was not the person I was thinking of.
After the meet and greets of the evening, which didn’t take long, my friend and I said our last good-bye and left together. I was only introduced to two people the who evening. Ironically, one of those two people was the actress Kirsten Dunst, and the other the evening’s performer’s partner. My friend and I never did see the performer, since the crowd of people wanting to meet him was too long, and my friend decided we would meet with him at another time. And that was that.
That very next morning, I got a request to be friends on Facebook by a man who looked strangely a lot like the man I had seen the night before, the one I reached around to see if he was who I thought he was. I was quite sure it was him, in fact, though I had only gotten a quick look, enough to satisfy me that it wasn’t the person I thought he was. But here he was on my Facebook Page wanting to be my friend.
I thought it too weird to be true and figured I was surely mistaken that it was the same man. So, just for shits and giggles, I went to his FB Wall to see if I could learn anything more about him and to convince myself that he either was or was not that particular man. Well, sure enough, the first post I saw, was a picture of him and the performer from the night before, right where I had been standing less than eight or nine hours previously.
My analytical mind tried to look for a logical explanation and found one immediately. I came to the conclusion that this was one of these people who takes lists of people in certain circles and asks them to be his friend on Facebook. Being that I was at this event last night, he must have known the performer well enough to have him give him the list of attendees at the performance.
But then I thought about it. I didn’t buy the tickets to the show, my friend did, and my friend did not have to put in my name anywhere to buy the tickets. We paid for everything cash, drinks, valet, etc. My friend nor I added our names to a mailing list nor did we give away any business cards. Actually, I gave one two business cards away, one to an old friend, and one to a new one who I had just met there. But I did not see any relation or connection with them to this man on Facebook. Since I never was introduced to him and since when I was introduced to the other two people he was not around, how is it that this man came to be interested in befriending me on Facebook, hours after we rubbed shoulders together but never knew each others name?
Mystery solved… I decided to write this man a FB message and asked him how he got my name and how he knew I had been at the same show as him the night before. His answer befuddled me and is the reason I am making this post. He exact words were, and I quote, “A coincidence that was meant to be, I suppose! Your name came up on Facebook’s “People You May Know” suggestion list, and when I saw a bunch of mutual friends, I figured you must be someone I need to friend! Sorry we didn’t get to actually meet last night, but we’re apparently on the same wave length.”
Or is the mystery really solved? How did Facebook know?