The webs we weave

I had an interesting little "connections" moment today. Our company president had his annual fall barbecue today (the one I wrote about last year). Walking around, I encountered many faces that I recognized but couldn't put a name to, which I suppose is natural in a company as subdivided as ours is.

At one point I happened to walk over to such a group of people - I had seen some of their faces before, but didn't know their names. After talking for a while, one of them asked me something about Okinawa-kun. I couldn't remember her name, but I was certain that I had seen her before, and it puzzled me how she would know Okinawa-kun, since he didn't really have any connections to ATR besides through me. We talked about it, and then I realized that I had never seen her at ATR - she had come to one of my parties last spring, and that's where I had met her. We worked out all the connections, and it was quite a tenuous web.

Here are the stories of the connections. Last summer, I met an MIT intern at ATR. Nobody had introduced us, but she was wearing an MIT sweatshirt and I was wearing my brass rat, so I decided to go up and introduce myself. Through her I got to know some interns who were here on a program from Canada. Through the fall and winter, I became pretty close friends with them.

Around the same time, last fall, the girl I was speaking to today was introduced by one of her university friends to another friend who happened to be from Okinawa. He, in turn, was friends with Okinawa-kun, and introduced the two of them.

Later, in the spring, one of my aforementioned Canadian friends introduced me to a visiting researcher who had previously been a part of the same Canadian internship program, and who had returned to ATR for a few months. He worked in a different lab from mine, and so, through him, I got to know a few of the Japanese researchers he worked with.

Around the same time, last spring, I met Okinawa-kun in a dance club, and we started hanging out.

Finally, all the elements came together when I invited both Okinawa-kun and one of the Japanese researchers to a party in Nara park. Okinawa-kun invited the girl I was speaking to today, and she became friends with the Japanese guy from ATR. Later, she got to know some of his coworkers, with whom she ended up coming to the ATR barbecue.

The really strangely coincidental thing today was that half an hour before I spoke with this girl, I had gotten an email on my phone from another friend, asking whether I knew Okinawa-kun's mailing address. I did not. However, it turns out that the girl I talked to today was very close with him and did have his address, which I was then able to pass on to my friend.

It was one of those moments when you say "it's a small world", but that doesn't quite do it justice. Personal relationships are the lifeblood of society, and it's important to recognize that in a complex and interconnected social web like ours, the tenuous connections are the most powerful. Those are the connections that have the power to join completely separate social circles in the network, and thus it's important to recognize and respect their value.

It's kind of funny... when I was a teacher, so many of my Japanese students would write their essays on a theme like, "Friends are Important" or some such trite and mundane-sounding topic. And now I find myself writing about the same thing. :)