connect the dots

there is a theory of social connectedness i refer to as "the theory of the 1,000 person clique." it is, essentially, that practically every person you know knows someone else you know, and that our tight "inner circle" is really a vast and interconnected network of people. example: i met adam at an 80s dance party, an introduction that would lead me to believe he was completely unconnected to anyone i already knew. but, in fact, adam worked with lauren, who volunteered with me. and lauren, in turn, was old friends with my friend suvi. so really, adam had been a part of my 1,000 person clique all the time. or, here's another one i've actually posted about already: i lived in spain with elna, who moved to new york and performed a show witnessed by suvi, and also taught a sunday school class attended by my friend ryan. not to mention that both elna and her sister, christina, grew up in seattle with oertel, who was in the mtc with me. 1,000 person clique again. figuring out all the people you know who know each other is pretty fun, and you should try it. as long as the prospect of never being able to escape your extended social network doesn't make you want to die.

a few days ago, susan sent me this article by malcolm gladwell, which takes the theory of the 1,000 person clique a step further. before i continue let me say, in the interest of full disclosure, that i have a deep and true love for malcolm gladwell. though i am 100 percent positive that he is an emotionally unavailable narcissist (something that has, unfortunately, been somewhat manifested in his writing as of late), i think he is brilliant and funny and a truly original thinker and if he asked me to have his babies i would say yes. but, i digress.

in this article, and to a greater extent in his book, "the tipping point," malcolm gladwell posits that all of that social interconnectedness is actually the work of a few uniquely talented people he calls, unsurprisingly, "connectors." connectors are the people who know everyone, and can always put you in touch with exactly the person, or kind of person, you need. an event planner in new york city? done. a manufacturer in guatemala? done. a public relations professional in tokyo? well, you get the idea.

to prove this point, malcolm engages in an exercise whereby he traces all of his good friends back to the original source. and, as you might expect, most of them came back to the same one person. this all sounded sort of fun, so i tried it myself. it would go something like this: i met jed because he went to law school with nicole, who is a clerk with jessica, who was introduced to me by dana, who i know because she and susan had mutual friends at stanford, although they had never met until they were both living in salt lake. and i know susan because she was roommates with ck, who i know because i was roommates with ck's sister jane. so, no jane, no jed, even though jane and jed have never met themselves (at least as far as i know. but let's be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if they had).

fun, huh?

but that was the best line of connectedness i could come up with. most of my other friends had shorter and much less interesting ways of coming into my life. there are, i think, two reasons for this. firstly, i think being a mormon and meeting people in a ward (congregation in the non-mormon vernacular) often eliminates a lot of these steps. ultimately, for example, i met and was roommates with jane because we were in the same ward, and the same is true for a lot of my close friends. i can trace them, in not too many steps, back to a ward or a friend from a ward. this does not mean the bizarre interconnectedness is any less; in fact, sometimes i think the mormon thing makes it worse. (like my ward friend joellen's sister being best friends with the ex-wife of my then-boyfriend, who was the ex-boyfriend of my good friend robin, who i met in my ward. got that?) but it does mean that the chain of command frequently leads back to a ward instead of a "connector."

my second conclusion is that, perhaps, i myself am a connector! i need to test this a little further, but i think it might be at least partially true. maybe not to the extent of the examples in malcolm gladwell's article (i am not friends with lenny bruce, for example), but i'd like to think my circle is wide enough to bring together a pretty good variety of interesting and necessary people. (my most recent crowning achievement in this department was when ck was frantically looking for a photographer in virginia and i remembered that my friend berto is, you guessed it, a photographer in virginia. voila!)

i am going to keep working on tracing my friends back, and maybe i will uncover a brilliant and talented connector other than myself. and how about you? what is your craziest line of connectedness, and who is the ultimate source? me? i wouldn't be surprised...