On the "It's a Small World After All" Syndrome

[lhynard]

I think you all know what I'm talking about -- that strange and more common than ever expected experience of seeing someone you know from another far away place or time at random places and sometime far a way places from each of you. For example, running into someone you know from another state than yours while stopping at a rest area in yet

Comments

[bpr]

Since I spent 30 minutes this morning searching through old posts, as I knew I had written some years back about something similar. But all I could find was this post. Not much I'm afraid. But I remember walking across campus as an undergrad and noticing how often I would see one or more people that I knew.

[lhynard]

no tag on your journal for "'It's a Small World' Syndrome", huh?

[la_vita_nuova]

I've noticed I run into people I went to college with (who aren't in my immediate friends circle) with a surprising frequency. I think in my case it's that people who went there often have simialr tastes & ideas, so we tend to show up at the same places.

[lhynard]

This is a good point and probably helps explain many of these occurances, but what of random sightings in McDonalds on highway rest stops and the like?

[la_vita_nuova]

I can't speak to that.

[izaaksmom]

For example, say the odds are 1/100,000,000 that any person you meet is someone you know or knew whom you would not expect to meet at that place. But if you pass 100,000 people a day, you would experience the syndrome on average once every 1000 days or roughly every 3 years or so.

As a non-math person, I think your "math" is off. You are assuming that each day you don't repeat any people so that you can eliminate them and thus lower your odds. But that doesn't happen. I would argue that every time you start your day over, your odds go back up to the highest number. After all, people do the same routines every day. The chances are much higher that you will see the SAME person every day than you would a random, out of place person.

Also, wouldn't the odds change based on time and location? I am much more likely to meet a high school classmate in Walmart here in town on a Saturday afternoon than I would be at 4am or in a Walmart in Alaska. How would that factor in?