When I lived in Chicago I had a friend, J, who was staff of an area convention for some years.  Later I met folks, at least three people on separate instances, who were also staff of the same convention, and I would ask naively, "Well, then you might know J?"  The replies were all "No!".  Of course, now we move to present day and most of the answerers are on my Facebook Flist, and J is on their Flists too.  WTH!  Was it just easier to tell me 'No' then to tell me correctly, I think so.  And naive me I thought I might get a accurate answer to an innocent, inocous, harmless question.