My wife and I are some weird combination of this. She’s a local doctor and we routinely see people that recognize her that she can’t acknowledge first.
After volunteering multiple days in the lunchroom at my kid’s elementary school last year and working in a high school media center this year I’m a bit “that friend” but in a more creepy way because I know everyone’s kids, but not their parents.
When I meet my kids friend's parents I usually refer to them as eg Hey Joe's Dad, how you doin'.
Me too, and it's pretty wild. I live in a small town and have had enough odd jobs/encounters while being friendly that i seemingly know everyone. It's also a bit of a positive feedback loop as well, because i know enough people that they keep introducing me to new people, who then introduce me to even more people.
I'm also this guy. I've connected some wild stories too LoL. Two girls who looked eerily alike but didn't know each other.... same Dad LoL, he bailed on the first girl when she was 6.
The other one that blows my mind is two guys who share the same kinda unique name. One id been friends with my whole life the other about 5 years. The more I got to know the new guy the more I HAD to get him together with the old friend. Turns out they're now great friends and they now get together more without me than with me LoL. Their similarities are so creepy. Same unique first name. Same middle name! Sons have the same birthday, one year apart. Before they met, they lived within walking distance of each other. There's more. It's a total glitch in the matrix.
Just treat people well and fun stuff can happen.
Same here. I'll bring my friends to a local show and I always know half the cast. I got to introduce my friend to one of her inspirations a few days ago, and she cried.
I'm a performer so we all know each other
Me too, but I don't like it. When I'm out with friends, I'm out to really enjoy my time with them and it's especially great when it's a few of us. I get really awkward and feel like kind of a douche when people come up to me to say hi and chat. Especially if they decide to join us or merge groups.
It's an issue when you have many different social groups or networks through work, hobbies, schooling, etc.
Mate, same! Town I used to live, I couldn’t walk from one end of town to the other without picking up a a dozen acquaintances on the way. Made it really difficult to spend quality time with my closest friends.
So, when we got older, me and my entire inner circle all got houses in a different town where nobody knew us! It’s blissful not having to stop to talk to people every 30 seconds.
That's my wife. Leaving parties is the worst because I love the ol' Irish Goodbye and she needs to say bye to EVERYONE at the party that she talked to.
I'm fairly well connected and that's exactly why I use the Irish goodbye LoL. It used to take me half of the party to say hello, then I'd be saying goodbye straight afterwards it felt. I realized that as long as I connected with you at the event you don't remember if It was coming or going so I just started leaving. It was so liberating.
This is invariably the case when a person deep in the Introvert side of the scale goes out with a friend far into the opposite side of the same scale, (i.e. an Extrovert).
On the other hand there are situations were it's the Extrovert friend that feels awkward and the Introvert one that is at home and energized, normally anything to do with figuring out and solving really complex problems and situations rather that casual socializing.
It's absolutelly normal to feel comparativelly inept next to an expert doing their thing in their expert domain.
I like that you think that all of us hermits are an expert at something. No, a lot of us aree just both pathetic and stupid lol.
I bet you're good at something, even if only because you've done lots of it and/or find it interesting.
It needs not be expertise in a formal "expert" field, for one to be an expert.
My friend says I act like this.
I read a book called "how to win friends and influence people" and it completely changed my life for the better once I started taking the book literally.
Everybody tends to be selfish and think of themselves (not in a bad way). If you play into this and learn what people are interested in, you instantly become interesting to that person.
"Hey Ricky, how's your hot wheels collection! Get any new classics?" True story, different name. That's just the butcher at the grocery store I frequent. He'll tell me all about his latest hot wheels collection, and then I get a discount, we both win. I've made a friend, and influenced him to give me a deal.
But how do you even know about his Hot wheels collection? It's not like I ask all store clerks for their hobby.
I suppose you can try and start a conversation by talking about yourself, or "a friend", then using that as a hook for asking about them. Or use a low hanging fruit, like a popular sport (something weird in USA, soccer everywhere else):
"Damn, my friend can't stop talking about his team, do you follow sports?" On a no, it's a perfect opportunity to comment something like "Yeah, better stuff to spend your time with, right?"
He had a couple hot wheels out on the counter and I asked about them, so he was excited to share his hobby with me.
Depending on who I am with I could go either way. I'm like an extroverted introvert mutant haha.
I'm kind of that friend because I've had a chance to meet and work with a lot of famous people without ever being especially famous or successful myself... but I do have a lot of stories. Both professional and incidental.
For example-
My dog played with Eric Idle's dog in a park one day. We were the only two people there. We talked about dogs.
You and your friend just casually met one of my favorite comedians/actors... Some people have all the luck. Well, at least this comment places me at (a very tenuous) two degrees of separation :)
Any noteworthy encounters with Cleese?
Edit because I misread
Cleese is kind of a jerk sadly. I can't say I was personally introduced but I was in his vicinity for a spell in a professional capacity. I love his comedic persona but I can't say I would want to have an extended discussion with him... He's very... Acerbic in the not pleasant kind of way.
Ah, man. I used to have a friend just like this. We're still friendly these days, I just stopped drinking so I don't get out until the wee hours anymore.
Seriously we'd walk down the street and every third person he would stop and chat to as if they were lifelong friends... Somehow even after knowing him for years every time it would be people I didn't recognise. I assume he must have been dealing or something.
I am acquainted with quite a few people in my smallish town (35,000) and it's very hard to go out and not run into at least one person I recognize. I frequent most of the local shops, get to know the owners, get friendly with the clerks. It serves one well to get to know people.
Lordy yes. I have a friend who's apparently friends with everyone else on the planet earth, he knows everyone from the mayor to the dog catcher to every person in every neighborhood we go into. Wherever we go, people come up to him and greet him and I'm like - uh - I'll just stand her and hold your coke. I feel like the wall flower that hasn't left my apartment in 25 years.
My mom. Grew up in a small town of about 25,000 and my mom was the front office manager for the local orthodontist. Orthodontist was great and even folks from "the big city" went to her. My whole life was going out with my mom and running into people who wanted to talk
I live in a small town with about 600 people, so “A small town of about 25,000” was crazy to read.
According to the example on this Wikipedia page you live in a village not a town. Just thought it was neat.
It was originally classified as a town, because there used to be a lot more people not long ago. Many people left because there wasn’t enough work, and it’s not a very opportunistic place for kids.
My mom seems to know everyone on the planet. Grocery shopping with her is the worst because she'll run into people she knows every single time and spends forever talking to them.
Yeah mostly because i hang out at his neighbour hood (but even if it were mine i am not that popular there and the neighbour hood sucks ass).
How did you meet me and my brother? He has friends on every continent, I have like... 2 friends lol
