Six Degrees of Separation

NEW YORK CITY—“I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everyone else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names.”

Or so John Guare wrote in his play, “Six Degrees of Separation,” a Holden-Caulfield-meets-Manhattan’s-Upper-East-Side story about a con man who cleverly steals from WASPy art dealers.

The plot is tangential; the point is that I believe him. After experiencing countless coincidences of common acquaintances and endless exclamations of “Oh, wow! You know her, too?” I am a believer that, well, it’s a small world after all. And I have my proof.

I went to a private girls’ school in Manhattan, which inevitably means that I’m tapped into “Interschool” (a.k.a. “The New York City Private School Crazy Incestuous Social Network”). My classmates and I laughingly coined the 86th Street Rule: Without fail, you will meet someone you know on the main thoroughfare in our neighborhood.

In college, I thought I could make a fresh start. Then I remembered the 562 other New Yorkers in the first-year class. Including that kid I took violin lessons with when I was five. Oh, and that other guy who went to nursery school with me. There was also this girl who has the same mail carrier—and there went my anonymity.

At Harvard, it’s more common to play the “Do you know...” game than beirut or flipcup. The creators of thefacebook.com have capitalized on this fetish for making connections. Now we have a way to form bonds in writing for the whole student body (and even those in schools across the country) to see and subsequently stalk.

I’m convinced I’ve stumbled across a never-ending cycle of inter-relatedness. This summer I’m working for the New York Daily News, and, as it turns out, the business editor three rows over had dinner with my mom in Thailand 30 years ago because my mom’s teaching colleague and traveling companion was his cousin. Sounds like a soap opera, doesn’t it? And it doesn’t stop there. I met a friend two years ago at a dinner party and lost touch. This summer, amid hundreds of picnickers in Central Park, we met again.

Granted, my uncanny coincidences could be a product of where I live. There are 8 million people in this city, but a lot of factors—like neighborhood, educational background and socioeconomic class—narrow down the range of people with whom I interact with on a regular basis.

Still, I tend to agree with Guare’s reaction to this phenomenon: “I find that a) tremendously comforting that we’re so close and b) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close.”

We crave connections because we can’t get lost in the shuffle if people know us, if we’ve made an impression on them, if they count us among their friends. Being alone is my biggest fear, and if thefacebook.com tells me I have 402 friends, than I’m reassured I don’t have to worry. My complex relationships form a web of socialization that keeps me from sinking into a hole of isolation. I feel I’m an integrated part of something larger—a school community, an age group, even the biggest city in the world.

There’s a downside, too. Sometimes I want to disappear into the woodwork for a while, or stay in bed instead of manning a keg at a Mather Happy Hour. There’s something to be said for keeping a low profile. That way, you can avoid being tracked down by the Alumni Association for donations after college. Think of Henry David Thoreau and the joys of solitude at Walden Pond!

But to call it Chinese water torture is unduly harsh. Even Guare wrote that “every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds.” Don’t we always say that the best part of Harvard is the diversity and passion we see in our peers and those lessons we learn outside of the classroom? Even if we don’t form a deep relationship with each person we meet, there’s always potential for meaning and even intimacy. And that potential for human relationships is important because it can reduce a chaotic mass of people into a community that’s tangible and even cozy.

“I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It’s a profound thought,” Guare wrote. Call it what you will—profundity or intense East Coast/Ivy League social networking. But it’s something to think about.

Hana R. Alberts ’06, a history of science concentrator in Mather House, is a news editor of The Crimson. Contrary to what this postcard might imply, she does not spend all her time visualizing her social network. She just likes people. And thinking about people. Profoundly.