Friday, January 15, 2010

The world's too small, or The perils of Facebook

In our search for a DJ, we were delighted to find a super-talented one, who, along with being a music-first, no-cheese artist, was also in our demographic, and intuitively grokked the kind of party (heavy on the '80s music) that we wanted to have. Score!

However, through a bizarre swerve of Fate, he couldn't play at our wedding after we'd booked him. To make up for his error, he ended up substituting one of his partners at no cost to us. That honored his commitment so professionally and generously impressed us, so we accepted the substitution. Although we (or at least, I) were completely smitten with our would-be DJ, we figured that zeroing out a line item made good financial sense.

Now the plot thickens: the would-be DJ followed up by email recently to make sure the music at the wedding went well. Indeed it did. The substitute did a great job, and everyone had a blast. The would-be DJ mentioned that he noticed that I was Facebook friends with a former co-worker of his, with whom he had a very serious falling out. He was worried that this person would be at the wedding, creating an uncomfortable situation for all involved. He thought it was fortuitous -- fated even -- that he had mistakenly double-booked, and didn't have to risk a difficult encounter.

So now I wonder: Did Fate interfere to prevent the would-be DJ from meeting his old nemesis? What if I had invited that FB friend to the wedding? How much do people conclude from the (virtual) company I keep?

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

I also had a DJ back out of my wedding, except it was about a week before the wedding and we weren't so happy with our substitute, who we had to pay full price for. But that's not what I wanted to comment about... I think it's so interesting how Facebook now presents such unusual predicaments, which we didn't have to deal with a mere 5 or 10 years ago. Personally, I can't imagine people concluding too much info solely on your facebook friends, but then again, you never know.

elizabeth said...

I'm continually amazed at how much social networking has changed life! The ways we can track down long-lost friends, plot meet ups in different cities, cyber-stalk... and I forget that others are doing this with me, too!