I became aware of one Zachary M. Seward sometime in college. I was at the University of Chicago. He was at Harvard. I wrote for the Maroon every now and then. He was editor of the Crimson. I was slightly older than him. But not by much.

Some say we even look somewhat alike in grainy internet photos.

Next thing I know, the kid breaks some Larry Summers story and I start to get a little bit worried: all of the sudden, the other Zach Seward is pulling ahead.

There's a key detail that separates Zacharys R. and M. Seward. I go by Zack, Z-A-C-K; he goes by Zach with an H. I decided at a young age that the C-H version just didn't make sense. I mean, I didn't want people to think my name was Zatch.

That was before the internet.

Search me, Z-A-C-K Seward, and Google asks if it's really the other guy that you want.

The internet ghost of the other Zach Seward haunts me. We unwittingly decided on almost the same email address: zack dot seward@gmail dot com -- mine with a K, his with an H.

One time I got an email meant for Zach from a supervisor of his -- at the Wall Street Journal's Boston bureau. The boss was none too happy about something. I was secretly a little pleased. If his name stock fell, mine rose.

But then the internet ghost started to become real. When I took a job at the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, a colleague who had gone to Harvard thought I was the other Zach Seward. Nope, sorry, he's at the Nieman Journalism Lab in Cambridge.

At orientation day at Columbia Journalism School, a fellow student thought we went to the same high school. Nope. It wasn't me he was thinking of.

Then, one day, Zacharys R. and M. met face to face.

I'm walking around the j-school early in the semester and suddenly I think I recognize somebody. He's on a bench in the lobby pounding away at a laptop. It's the other Zach Seward.

Finally, Googling my own name has paid off.

I take a few laps passed him. Do I really want to be that guy? I gotta do it.

So I approach. He looks up.

We're wearing the same shirt: a checked button-down with a little polo pony on the chest. Mine's blue, his is green.

Hey, I say.

I know this is weird, but I think you're Zach Seward.

Yeah...?

Uh, me too.

We go on to have a semi-awkward and entirely cordial conversation. All I really remember is halfway trying to figure out if we were related. We briefly share in our name sameness. We each Tweeted about it shortly thereafter.

Since then, Zach Seward and I have struck up a working co-habitation of the same name -- and city. He's moved to New York. He forwards me emails that people mistakenly send to him. I thank him kindly, and say I owe him a beer.

Maybe then we'll scheme up our TV talk show.