Small World Discoveries

Last weekend when I was out social Swing dancing, an older man who asked me to dance shared the exact address where he grew up when he introduced himself. I was speechless because a) that is not something one typically does, and b) it turns out that he grew up right across the street from my grandparents — and used to shovel their driveway six decades ago! He even remembered my grandfather’s name. What are the odds of this coincidence? As a child, I spent summers and holidays in that beautiful brick house my grandfather had built in the 1930s, and we both recalled the expansive view of Boston from the back patio. This was a surprising and unexpected connection on the dance floor.

Last night I danced at the annual “Swingin’ on the Charles” Swing Dance event at the Charles River boat house. The skyline, sailboats, and red line “T” crossing the Longfellow Bridge provided a quintessential Boston backdrop to the jazz music and dancers on the docks. One thing I love about Swing Dance is that people who show up to social dance are passionate about this style and happy to dance with others, even much younger or older than themselves. I was happy to see a predominance of twenty-somethings from the local universities, mixing with dancers from various other ages up through their seventies.

A young man in his late twenties asked me to dance, and commented that the Boston waterfront view reminded him of Seattle, where he’s from. I told him I used to visit Seattle often when I lived in California. After some back-and-forth conversation–while we were practicing back-and-forth Swing, Charleston and Lindy Hop moves–we discovered that we attended the same California graduate school for our PhDs in engineering, years apart.

These two “small world” discoveries through casual dance floor conversation make me wonder how many more would be uncovered through more social connections and conversations on dance floors and other places in our day-to-day lives. What “small world” coincidences have you experienced?