Ask me if I know your friends, I'll tell you to GTFO

"I'm from Leixlip".

'really? Do you know John?'

"No. There about 16,000 people in the town.".

If you dont know the person your clearly billy-no-mates. Clearly.

been in this situation before, and it turned out that we DID know the same people, down to them knowing my bro's best mate, who i was in a band with at the time, and it turning out that through the band, id been mentioned to them before , if somewhat abstractly.

also, terry...youre in leixlip?! do you know me?

I hate it so much sometimes. Usually someone asks me where I live and then they start naming a list of people from my area and to each one I respond no. After they've asked 2 or 4 names I say,
"I don't really know anyone in the area, because despite the fact I've lived there for 17 years, I find that most people in the area are a bunch of insufferable tossers and therefore I tend to socialize elsewhere!"
Usually that moves the conversation forward to more interesting topics, sometimes it ends in the other conversationee to dislike me for being so abrupt and obnoxious and on the rare occasion, someone has the nerve to reply with;
"So you don't know (insert name here) then?"
Honestly some people just try my patience.

I think the worst though, is when Taxi drivers start playing this name game. You tell them where you're headed, they assume you're going home and start asking,
"Do you know (insert name here), he/she lives up that direction?"
and you feel like responding with,
"Look mate, it's bad enough when my friends ask me those sort of questions, but when someone I have no intention of getting to know, nor, honestly, do I particularly want to speak to at this moment in time ask me, I feel the urge to punch them in the face, so how about a little less chit-chat and a little more shut the hell up!"
However, I quickly realise this might not be the best idea, because chances is are the dude in the driver seat is a homicidal maniac, so whether I know (insert name here) or not, I usually just go,
"Yeah, spoken to him/her a few times, seemed like a nice enough bloke/girl, until he/she raped/murdered that kid of course. Hear he/she's facing 20 years..."
That usually shuts the driver up, fairly quickly.

The Americans are the easiest to deal with in these situations. The ones who are stupid enough to assume that everyone in Ireland, knows everyone else are generally stupid and gullable, so when they say,
"Oh my Gawd, you're from Ireland? Do you know (insert first name here - apparently the Irish don't have surnames according to some Americans)?"
simply reply with,
"Yeah. He/she used to be a great friend of mine. I went to his/her funeral. It was quite moving."
to which they'll reply with something along the lines of,
"He/she died?"
to which you should answer,
"Yeah, didn't you know?"
they'll then say,
"No, what happened?"
You'll then reply,
"He/she tried to rob a leprechaun and the leprachaun murdered them..."
At this point in the conversation, you smile and walk away, while laughing mockingly, leaving a confused expression on their face.

Ok, now that, I've gotten that rant off my chest, I can relax again.

this practice does not annoy me.

I started a thread about the likelihood of sharing an aquaintence a few months ago:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055039182&referrerid=&highlight=

It doesn't bother me in the slightest! It's interesting to meet someone from a place you're familiar with, and it's often quite common two people might know eachother if they're from the same area and are the same age.

Maybe if you had a bit of interesting conversation in you, people wouldn't need to resort to this! Do you find people often want to talk to you about the weather? Or sit in awkward silence? It might not be everyone else in the world that's boring...!