Monday, July 23, 2007

Sometimes a body just can't get away from everybody else


It has been said that if one were to stand in Piccadilly Circus long enough, eventually one would see everybody one has known in one’s lifetime. I don’t know if anybody has ever tested the theory, or just exactly how long is ‘long enough’ to see all of those people, but it’s an intriguing six degrees of separation premise that might be worth exploring as, oh, maybe a worthy ‘project’ for Paris Hilton, just so she can test out the new-found, post-slammer enlightenment she mentioned to Larry King.

I once sat in an outside café in my hometown, drinking a coffee and waiting for Wendy who was on some sort of an errand, so I had a half-hour or so to kill. In that 30-minute period both of my former wives (who still live in the same town) happened by and stopped to chat. I began to feel like my entire life was passing by me. The proprietor, who is a friend, noticed the passing parade and came over and said: “Hey, Ian, maybe if you sit here long enough, you’ll run into all the girls you dated in high school.”

Yesterday, after Wendy and I had conversed over breakfast about the interconnectedness of people we know – when we were first seeing each other, we found out that we had all sorts of people in common, even at a friendship level, even though we worked and traveled in entirely different realms – and then moved into that six degrees of separation stuff. We thought that even with our personal connections we should create an interconnectedness line chart and just keep expanding it. Eventually we'd have hundreds of people, no doubt. So would anybody else.

A couple of hours later yestereday we were sitting outside at Starbucks in one of those neat little shopping villages that abound in Victoria, when I looked up and saw a woman that I knew I knew. I grasped at a name, and said: “It’s Margot, right?” She looked at me, and said: “Yes, it is. And I know you. Where do I know you from?” Anyway, the long and short of it was, that she is a performer and I had interviewed her for a story many years ago. But then, another woman joined her. And, in this case, Wendy said: “I know you, (to the newcomer). You work in government office downtown and we’ve connected over some documents.” They agreed they had. But wait, there’s more. The newcomer woman looked at me, and we both agreed that we too knew each other. It turned out that she was one of my English students way back at the dawn of time when I taught high school. So, there you had it. Interconnections all over the place just from a random incident on a Sunday morning.

When I was on Rarotonga in the South Pacific a few years ago I got to know a Maori guy who was a local bus driver. We chatted one day about this and that. He said he’d never really been anywhere other than New Zealand, and he was interested that I was from Canada. “My brother lives in Canada, in a town called Chilliwack. I’m going to visit him next year. He has a Harley, and I’m going to rent one when I go to see him and we’re going to tour the Rocky Mountains.” Cool, but as it happens, my brother too lives in Chilliwack. When I returned him I mentioned that to my kid brother, who is a parts manager at a Chrysler dealership. “I know a Maori guy,” my brother said. “He brings his car in for servicing. He has a Harley.” Same guy? What are the odds?
Pretty damn good, it seems. Evidently the ‘math’ of six degrees of separation works out worldwide. Aside from the fact that I have run into people from ‘home’ in far-flung areas of the world, I’ve also established connections via other people, in which we have found out that we knew people in common.

So, here would be an interesting test. We all have people on our bloglists. People from all over the continent, and indeed all over the world. I would suggest that if you pried enough you would find that you and some of your blogger friends actually have some real-time friends or acquaintances or business associates in common. It would take a long time to work that out, but it would be an interesting experience. Don’t choose somebody in your town, or even in your province or state, but go farther afield and see where your connections are.

Should you try this, and actually make a connection, let the rest of us know about it. It would make a great blog.

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20 Comments:

Blogger Voyager said...

Ian, I am often astounded at the connections we have with other people, especially those in remote parts of the world. The most amazing for me was this one: When my paternal grandmother died I was a university student living with 3 other young women in Ottawa. One of my room mates mentioned to her parents that she would be attending the funeral. It turned out my roommate's father had lived with my father and his family in Vancouver as a high school student. It was wartime, and children with parents in the service were often taken in by other families for the duration. They lost touch after the war, and met again over 40 years later, because their daughters happened to be roommates.
V.
V.

10:53 AM  
Blogger andrea said...

There's soemthing kind of comforting about all this interconnectedness but I haven't had anywhere near the same kind of exprience with it as you. Maybe because I was a nomad for so long. I like the challenge and it would definitely be cheating to see if we have anyone in common, as it's very likely, so I will look further afield.

1:17 PM  
Blogger Dr. Deb said...

I often think the world is a small place even though it is so large. What a story at the cafe, Ian!

1:38 PM  
Blogger Hageltoast said...

i love when the world gets that small and you start to really feel you are part of it. At least that's how i feel. kind of makes up for life being short.

1:50 PM  
Blogger heiresschild said...

hi ian, i guess that's why people say, "small world." there was this t.v. program on this past fall season called "six degrees." i thought it was pretty good, but apparently a lot of other people didn't because the ratings were too low. they took it off and brought it back during re-run season, but again the ratings were too low, and it's gone again. but it was exactly just how you were describing things in your post. now i understand the show much better. thanx.

3:02 PM  
Blogger dragonflyfilly said...

INDEED, what are the odds? -- i chuckled when you mentioned the Maori guy in Chilliwack...you know there are not that many Maori's in Chilliwack, and when you mentioned him i suddenly remembered that i had briefly met a Maori when i lived in Chilliwack...no seriously...he kind of stood out in the crowd! (i dunno, maybe it's not the same guy, but who knows? maybe it is.

Anyway, ian, what a really really great Post; and i especially like the graphic at the beginning.

So how would you suggest we go about trying your experiment?

cheers for now,
pj

3:43 PM  
Blogger dragonflyfilly said...

p.s. on impulse i clicked on Andreas profile photo because i liked it and was curious about it, and if that is a photograph of her in one of her Posts, you know, i think i know her; then she referenced Harrison Hot Springs, so it is highly likely that i met her there, as i have been attending the Harrison Festival of the Arts since my daughter was about 7 years old..so that would be roughly 17 years!

...i'm going to try to chat with her...

3:54 PM  
Blogger AlieMalie said...

that saying HAS to be true. where else in the world would i have seen 5 other hick texans that i'd rather not see at all?

oh wait, i did that to myself. :P

in a very strange incident, i was walking into salisbury cathedral a few years ago, talking with my then boyfriend about my architecture prof who had gone on and on about the place, and then, lo and behold, who should walk out just as we were walking in? yep. the prof. was a little strange, but fun too.

:)

5:47 PM  
Blogger meggie said...

Most places in the world where we have gone- which are only 4 countries- it is my husband who meets people he knows!
It is a very interesting theory though.

11:26 PM  
Blogger Mel Avila Alarilla said...

Hi Ian,
Very interesting thing about interconnections. People who travels a lot and meet a lot of people all the time are liable to bump into somebody he/she knows from way back when.

That happens to me at times but I never gave much of a thought for that. I just consider them coincidences. Anyway, you have a very interesting point there.

Thanks for the usual interesting and somewhat intriguing post.

God bless you with all the wit and wisdom in this world.

11:53 PM  
Blogger Groanin' Jock said...

Whilst working as a barman in Australia, I poured drinks for two different guys on two separate occasions in two different cities both of whom I'd served in the same canteen dozens of times whilst working in catering as a student in Edinburgh. My wife and I also managed to bump into two girls in Vietnam, Thailand and on a suburban train in Perth, Australia. And we found out that our flatmate in Melbourne had lived directly across the road from us in Edinburgh two years earlier - we'd almost certainly been in our local pub at the same time!

3:29 AM  
Blogger laughingwolf said...

interesting stuff, ian...

my most memorable connection was driving edward kennedy [duke] ellington around in my car, a few months before he died, talking about everything and nothing, after i'd picked him up from his toronto hotel to attend an art gallery opening i co-owned in oakville

there, i also met margaret hamilton, of the 'wicked witch of the west' fame, as well as some actors from the old 'i dream of jeanie' tv program [not hagman, the colonel], and another jazz musician, woody herman

anyone also meet these folks?

6:42 AM  
Blogger Ian Lidster said...

Laughingwolf: I'd love to have met Duke Ellington. The closest I came was when I interviewed George (Lullaby of Birdland)Shearing. That was a rush.
I was once fairly good friends with Lois Sutherland (Donald Sutherland's first wife), and otherwise have seen a few notables over the years, and have interviewed via phone or otherwise, many others.
Once, in Waikiki, I passed Audrey Hepburn on the street and was fascinated by both how tall she was and how skinny she was. Her upper arms were like sticks.
Voyager, your funereal connection is quite an amazing one, I think.
Dragonflyfilly: I thought about this afterwards, and I honestly cannot make a suggestion as to how you could go about it.
Andrea: I would strongly suspect we know people in common, and I would not be surprised if Voyager and I do as well.
Aliemalie: I think your story is quite fascinating, as I also think Groanin' Jock's is. I once ran into a guy I'd gone to school with when I was in London many years ago. We both detested each other in school, but spent a great day pub-hopping far from home and reveled in each other's company.
Love everybody's accounts of their encounters.
Ian

7:57 AM  
Blogger jmb said...

My story is very thin for this idea but I lived in London with a girl I had met on the boat going to England. She knew an Australian who was a post doctoral fellow at University College London and asked him to dinner, nominally to set him up with another girl whom she had asked to dinner. It turned out that when I was at University in Sydney I knew lots of his friends socially but had never met him.
Anyway 46 years later we are still married as her setup of him with the other girl didn't work but we managed our own setup.
You are so good at taking a little incident like that one and running with it into a very good post.
regards
jmb

9:01 AM  
Blogger CS said...

Indeed, I discovered that one of my blogger friends is in the same town and same profession as a relative of mine. I have run into people I know in the oddest places. And many more times people connected to people I know. Don't know about the Picadilly Circus theory though since moist people I know haven't been(and will never go)to England. Make it the local WalMart, and sadly you could be on to something.

10:45 AM  
Blogger Ian Lidster said...

Dear cs: The WalMart theory absolutely works. I've even run into people I know in WalMarts in other towns.
Cheers,
Ian

11:26 AM  
Blogger Big Brother said...

The summer that Mr. BB and I were visiting Ireland, we had a beautiful example of this. We were way off in the west, in county Kerry, in some small village pub. The dining room was closed and we were going to the bar to get some pub grub, when we saw a couple going to the dining room, so we told them that it was closed. Seeing that they were Québecois (the accent is hard to miss) we decided to have supper together. Of course the first thing that we all asked was where in Québec we all came from. They said that they were Longueil and asked us where we were from. I said from Kirkland, they then said that his parents lived there and what street so I told them the street and he asked me if I had a daughter. I said yes and gave her name. He started laughing and told us that my daughter was one of his brother's best friends. Talk about a small world.

11:39 AM  
Blogger laughingwolf said...

wish you could have ian, he was a gentleman's gentleman...

forgot to add, i later got a note from his son, mercer, thanking me for taking care of his dad that evening

i would not let anyone sit the seat he sat in, for a good 3 - 4 months... lol

1:40 PM  
Blogger Janice Thomson said...

What a great post Ian. It's true the world truly is interconnected and you gave good examples. Another amazing example is that of meeting someone new; in some cases there seems to be such an instant connection, a comfortableness like you had known them for years and if one believes in reincarnation no doubt you did know them - in a past life.

2:19 PM  
Blogger CS said...

Oh, I almost forgot, also on my blogroll is someone who is the co-worker of a good friend's boyfriend. Okay, that is a little removed, but still interesting.

8:11 PM  

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