Six Degrees of Foberation OR How I Know the People You Know

I just discovered, thanks to Foxy J, that Theric has started a blog. Several weeks ago, in fact. I would gripe that he failed to mention this to me, but he has posted on my blog several times with his fully linked blogger identity and has, in fact, mentioned to me that he was in the process of figuring out how he intended to make his very own impact on the blog world, so it's my fault for not figuring it out sooner.

Somewhere, among the comments to a post or two he made on his blog, there's a conversation between Theric and Singing Cicada about whether or not they know each other, given that they seem to know the same people. I am mentioned in said conversation. *blush* And elsewhere, or perhaps in the same place, Theric comments on how the Internet has cut down the six degrees separating everyone in the world to two or three degrees. That got me thinking, and has inspired me to tell the following [long] story:

Several years ago, I worked at the Morris Center with Melyngoch (who as far as I know doesn't yet have a blog despite all her friends' collective insistence that she start one). I could tell you all sorts of embarrassing things about Melyngoch, but if you know her she's probably already told you and if you don't you don't care.

Also several years ago, I took a Creative Writing class from Dean Hughes. Theric was in that class. As it turns out, at that time Theric's wife, Lady Steed, was working in the same office as my wife, Foxy J. So it was natural that the four of us started hanging out. Then one day Theric and I decided to form a writing group. I invited Melyngoch, but she declined for hectic life reasons. Zippergut Queen, whom I knew from a writing conference, accepted the invitation, and the Friends of [Master Fob] was born. (It's a wonder we didn't call ourselves FOMF instead of FOB.)

A few months later, Melyngoch decided her life was de-hectified enough that she could now be a full-time Fob. Then, one day, she said, "MF, you and Tolkien Boy should meet. You have a lot in common." A year and a couple misdirected emails later, I met Tolkien Boy and we quickly became good friends.

Shortly after that, TB invited me to a St. Patrick's Day wake at Singing Cicada's house, where I met, besides Cicada, Ambrosia, Bawb, Jersey Jobber (who may or may not get a new tag now that he's no longer jobbing in Jersey), Cicada's Brother Number Something, and Brother's Date That Night. There were other people, I'm sure, but either they were unimportant or I've forgotten them. At any rate, I found TB's friends delightful--particularly Cicada's performance poetry.

Then came the Great Blog Explosion this summer (at least that's when I became aware of it), and suddenly I could follow links to get to know (sort of) my friends' friends' friends' friends. For example, there's Eleka Nahmen, who has spent the summer working at the same place my wife did seven years ago and I finally met in person last week. And there's Texas Mama, who appears to be an acquaintance of Cicada and also appears to have been in Madrid at more or less the time both Foxy and I were there as missionaries. And then there's Miss Nemesis, whose blog I happened upon by linkhopping from Cicada's page (I'm beginning to wonder if really Cicada is at the center of the universe), then later discovered while conversing with Theric that he also knows her, from his time at the Y.

Which is really where all this six-degrees-type pondering began, and which leads me to believe that the thing that cuts those six degrees down to two or three is not the Internet, but BYU. The Internet only makes us aware of the phenomenon.

Moral of the story: byuck* around on the internet long enough, and you might end up fobbing.

*The term "byuck," I believe, is trademarked by Thmazing Theric. I use it by implied consent, implied only because I'm his friend.