Patterns - The Eternal Hunt for Connection.

I'm pretty sure that anyone that knows me well has heard me talk about patterns in my life.  I have this tendency when talking about my life experiences to also mention patterns I've observed. I see patterns in birth dates, significant dates, names, smells, foods, and even mannerisms.
When I started writing this article I searched for a term that fits what I do and I've not been able to exactly find it. I did however find a few other interesting conditions like; Apophenia and Pareidolia.  Apophenia is defined as "the experience of perceiving patterns or connections in random or meaningless data."(1) This is often cited as a source for a rationale behind gambling. Pareidolia is defined as "a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (image or sound) being perceived as significant."(2) This could be seeing faces or shapes in clouds or on the moon or hearing hidden messages.  It can also be one sound causing another sound to be heard that is not actually there.  An example would be to be in the shower and hear the phone ringing but it's just the sound of the shower triggering the sound of the phone in your brain. This can also include divination, EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), and Backmasking (hidden messages in music).
I'm going to give you two stories and my patterns in the stories and let you decide if you think what I perceive fits into either category.  Both examples are regarding very dear friends of mine.  I will leave their names out for anonymity.

Story 1:
Friend of 20+ years now.
Became friends and I started making connections.

• Our mother's had the same first name.
• They also both had middle names that consisted of 3 letters.
• They were both Gemini.
• They were born a year apart.
• They also passed a year apart.

Story 2:

Friend of 4 years.

Met through a mutual friend because they thought we would get along. (If they only knew lol!)

Became good friends and once again started making connections.

• Friend born the same year as younger brother (7 years younger).
• Father's month/day are the same as my Mother's month/day.
• Younger brother's in some ways are very very similar.
• Father's birth year same as my Father's birth year.

So is this me finding connections in basically meaningless data or actual connections that have meaning?  For me they have meaning.  It means that in some way I'm linked to that other person by these connections. 

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia