The world population is about six billion, and yet there are supposedly no more than six degrees of separation among all of us. This theory was known well before the Broadway play of the name or the Kevin Bacon game of recent years. Guglielmo Marconi, in a 1909 Nobel speech, suggested the number 6 (well, 5.83) as connecting everyone together in a radio network.
Stanley Milgram measured connectivity in Americans and indeed discovered that only a small number of connections, especially through hubs and portals like the world wide web, interlink the entire population.
All of us have examples of surprising connections. At Gatwick airport, 20 years ago, cabs were few, and I agreed to share one with a nice young student. We were both going to London. We were both going to northwest London. We were both going to Hampstead Garden Suburb. Both to a street called Wild Hatch. Both, it turned out to our shock -- and the cab driver’s -- to the same house. The mother was my friend, the daughter was the student’s, and we surprised both, and ourselves.
Here on OS, so far I’ve found three examples of the separation game:
One-Degree of Separation, Through my Teacher:
There’s a frequent Google Ad in the space between the left hand activity feed and new posts feed, for Dan Gelber, who is preparing a run for a senate seat for Florida.
Dan Gelber’s mom was my middle-school homeroom and English teacher. She was an exceptional woman, and encouraged me to write, so there is an ironic connection every time I see Dan’s name. She helped me many years ago to find my way here.
One-Degree of Separation, Twice, Through my Sons:
I just found out that my younger son was a teaching assistant to OSer Gary Justis when Cary was a graduate student in fine arts at Northwestern University. When Cary read one of Gary’s comments on a post of mine he told me that Gary was a really “cool guy” and a “great artist.” Something we can all surmise from Gary’s posts and comments.
Cartoonist and humorist/author Bob Eckstein contributed to one of my older son Randall's (now defunct) magazines. We have shared several stories, have mutual acquaintances and have become OS friends.
There’s an evolutionary theory that our brains were wired to cope with about 150 close contacts, and that we wouldn’t be able to keep track of all the relationships, or have the brain power to care about more. Hunter-gatherer villages topped off at about that size, and so do most Web site cohorts, according to studies.
On OS, I’ve noticed friend lists seem to top off at about that number (with a few amazing exceptions). It seems almost impossible to keep up with more. And yet, we are separated from the rest of the world by no more than six others.
Anyway, have you found someone on OS with an unexpected connection to you or someone you know? Or have you been in another situation where you had a surprising connection?
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Comments
I think this post is interesting. This is a virtual neighborhood, and we coexist, hang out with those we like or who pique our interest. We don't have interpersonal contacts with others.
Rated.
The first was when Dorelvis (Dorelle) realized we had both attended the same art school (RISD), and although she was there after I graduated it is a small school and she had many of the same teachers that I had, etc. In addition, she was in some of the same classes there as a friend that I've known for almost 30 years.
The second was discovering that Ardee and I were both at RISD during the school year of '75-'76 and comparing notes with her about our time there, although we did not share any classes together.
The third was to find last fall that Stacey Youdin was very familiar with the house that my grand-aunt and grand-uncle had sold to Victor Borge in the mid-1950s in Southbury, CT and that was the house where a memorial service was held for Stacey's father a period of time after Victor Borge had sold the house to another buyer.
I have had a host of small world circumstances over the years, but in less than a year's time I was impressed by these OpenSalon "six degrees (or less) of separation."
I've found two women (Julie, Lisa) and one man (name??) here who were in the same places at the same times as I and though we can't remember meeting each other, we all have the same memories of third parties and situations... so we must be at the 2nd or 3rd degree of separation, right?
This is fun!
only the things I have in common with Cartouche because she grew up in Cleveland. But once when travelling from Spain to France, I was forced off the train due to a strike. I wound up making conversation with a young American man who happened to be a student where I teach...
designator, three is quite a few connections. How did you find out?
I found out through PMs and comments. There may be more.
Sally, if this were a game KB would be the king. And I probably passed your parents at the Broward Center for the Arts or some little restaurant. Maybe you too.
voicegal, when we travel we tend to increase our cohort. But now we make virtual connections.
I guess I am a hermit. I do have friends but not anywhere near 150 ;0) Gotta learn to work that Facebook . . . or resign myself to talking to the dog.
I have run into a very famous writer whom I knew in another time and place as an admiring person in a crowd of admirers. He is and was quite a kind, handsome, gentleman. He writes well and rarely.
Nope. Not telling. Would not be cool.
Dorinda, now you have us all wondering who and what! I hope all is well at the moment with the handsome writer. Sounds like it is and that would be indeed cool. And as for 150 "friends" I can't imagine. "Friends list" is something else.
I used to hunt around the Southbury barns for old furniture. Maybe I passed you guys.
Rated!
We were in Europe (my granparents, cousin, and I) and we were talking to an American couple next to us, waiting for the elevator. The talk turned to, "where are you from?" My grandparents answered that we were from close to LA, a town they had probably never heard of. Turns out that not only were they also from San Pedro, but that their son went to school (same class) as my uncle.
This was in Germany.
Annithyme, so often these connections are on the road, and often far away where people travel from different cities. Interesting.
I'm so pleased to have made your acquaintance on OS...and I'm certain that we'll find a linkage that we're happy to share.
But maybe that's just wish-fulfillment. ;)
sandra, I wish I were a company but I'm only a website (and a related book about solo travel). I did once run The Writing Company, but that was more corporate writing. I will have to find this out. I am a spokesperson for On Call International, if that helps connect us. One degree I'm pretty sure, between us.
As Voicegal said, our Cleveland connection exists. But I am sure too, that there are many more that lurk behind the avatars. I'm just not sure if I want to find out all the details. I enjoy knowing that we can write freely and retain a certain sense of privacy as well...
Rated for six degreeness.
cartouche, I wrote a book on cruises in 1991, and from the 80s on met loads of cruise people at functions and on ships. I'd be surprised if we haven't crossed paths, but you're right, the anonymity thing works well for many here and why spoil it if you don't need to. Still ...
However, the OS has touched my life in such a unique way, so very many amazing, brilliant, creative, personable and loving bodies here that I relate to and have made new connections with that may last for a long time to come. Doesn't get much better than that.
Still, I'm certain we'll find our connection, regardless of my celeb connex.
Michael, it's interesting but studies show we are programmed for no more than 150 acquaintances. I think most of us feel that is alot.
Timmymac, can I call you that? No one will blow your cover. We want to keep you happy and writing.
I went to the high school of some famous artist (Georgia O'Something) that was a student there when my grandmother was a teacher ... the artist studied under the great uncle of Chicago Guy, Roger.
Kind of weird ~ but sort of right :)
Thanks Lea! I love thinking about stuff like this. The world is actually quite small, I suppose ...
I truly believe that as a person lives longer and experiences more, the world shrinks. I've had many odd coincidences reveal themselves to me, but perhaps one of the strangest was when I used to work for a very large Cleveland-based law firm in Dallas. One of the women I worked with invited me and my SO (now hubby) to her home because she and I "clicked" so well. My OS was reluctant, saying he just didn't get along well with bubba types. I told him not to worry, that they were both from Michigan or some such place. Turned out that they had all gone to the same high school in suburban Cleveland and our hosts knew my SO's name well, as he was a multi-sport hero during his high school days. And *I* was the outsider in the conversation that evening. :)
“How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer”
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Thanks Laura. Will look into the study. I find these patterns fascinating.
Hawley, I feel pretty sure that we have one-degree of separation as I lived for years in your neck of the woods. We should compare notes.
Theo, I know that CCC (Woof!) went to Hahvard. Start there. Any others?
This is a genuinely provoking (in the best of ways) and unique piece you've written. Thank you for it.
Though this is not what you had in mind I've noted with great interest - while reading autobiographical articles here - how the life backgrounds of many OS'ers have joined them in experience though separated by geography and even age.
The fact that many of us have actual connections in the circle of our friends and family is pretty special when you think about the size of the world population and the odds. Great article.
Rated.
I didn't, of course, know I was going to meet that person here one day.
Bob, the Pitt saga conclusion in Shanghai is being written now and will follow a near-death post. How's that for a strange combo?
"Where you from?"
"Oh, which part?"
"I used to live there - where do you exit the freeway?"
"Ah I know that area, do you know ?
"Yes we live on that street"
"Wow. Do you know the people at number 83?"
We pause to look at each other, then look around for TV cameras like it's a setup. "We *are* the people at number 83"
"Ooh this is weird - I used to own your house!"
It turns out he really did, selling it about 5 years before we bought it. His in-laws live around the corner still, so we occasionally still hear how life is going for the guy.
Another example, a true one, for decades I was flying all over the US and Europe, doing research, making speeches, etc. I would frequently run into people that I knew, either in the airport or on the plane, and when talking to a stranger we would ask each other if the other knew so and so, and often they did. The point is that we were all doing the same thing, flew around constantly, were often even going to or coming from the same place, but for different reasons, or going to the same conferences. So our universe was badly skewed. While we didn't have the same jobs our jobs took us to the same places.
And just a small caveat about the 150 number. I would think that is true most of the time, but there are exceptions. For example the last church I pastored had 360 communicant members. Add the kids and that jumped to 420. If, after a year, I did not know, meaning having met them or called the out of towners, all of them, including the children, the buns in the oven, and the ones who live out of town, and know their problems, their likes and dislikes, and, hardest of all, who they are related to (and in small rural villages everybody is related to everybody) then I would have been considered incompetent. KNOWING the people in your church is the numero uno necessity of a local church pastor.
Fun to look at the replies. Nice to have something not so heavy to digest now and then.
Monte