A few weeks ago, I went to see Boston Ballet's Carmen at the Wang Center. I chatted during intermission with an Irish fellow sitting next to me. He was visiting Boston and New York and would be going back to Ireland soon. At the end of the show, I wished him a good stay in Boston. He said, "We might see each other again. You never know." I thought that was a nice thing to say, but unrealistically optimistic. Really, what's the chance that I will see him again?
At the beginning of 1994, I poked around looking for a job in Singapore. I found a series of articles on the Usenet titled "Moving to Singapore" written by David Lin. I corresponded with him via email. I met him in person when I went to Singapore in summer 94. Shortly after I got back in the States, my family visited my uncle's and we brought the pictures from our trip to Southeast Asia. Flipping through the albums, my cousin exclaimed, upon seeing David's photo, "Hey, I know this guy!" They met at the wedding of a family friend, whom I also know. David is a good friend of the groom. She knew his name, where he went to college, etc., and divulged his nickname to me (much to David's chagrin). I thought it was the most amazing thing. There I was, corresponding with some random person on the Net, only to find out later on that he's in fact a good friend of someone I know.
I don't remember exactly what the movie Six Degrees of Separation was about. The concept seems to assert that any two random people are already connected through at most five other people in some way, albeit in a non-obvious way. In the case of me and David, when we first met each other, we were apart by only two degrees of separation. The more entertaining version of this concept is a movie game you can play. You try to connect two actors, say A and B, through a series of movies. That is to say, find actor C who played in the same movie with A, then D in another movie with C, and then D with B. You rarely need more than three or four movies to connect any two actors. Kevin Bacon seems to be a good router point.
Sunil called me in the afternoon to ask if either Ed or I would like to see a Christian concert by Twila Paris. He had an extra ticket, because his girlfriend had an exam tomorrow and decided not to go in the last minute. Ed was busy with his thesis, so he passed. I wanted to be busy with my thesis, but what the heck. Sunil's friend, Jessica, had the tickets. The concert was going to be at Gordon College, where Jessica's brother goes to school.
I hate driving in Boston. The roads are bad and the drivers are even worse than New Yorkers. And why did I get a car? So that I can drive between Boston and New York and contribute to the pool of bad drivers in both cities. I am one of those 25% of motorists who admit being a below average driver. (I am also one of those 0.1% of motorists who admit being a below average driver but who are actually an above average driver.) The task of navigation fell on Sunil, naturally. He poured over the map.
"Oh, my brother gave directions. We should take 1 North and then 128 North." Jessica produced a printout of an email from his brother.
"Yeah. That much I figured out. It's how to get there after we get off the highway." Sunil looked over the letter.
"He didn't say much about that. Then he kinda drifted into Portuguese."
I thought, "Port-----?" Woah, BRAKE! I was going too fast on a tight curve; someone just cut me off; and the sun was in my eyes.
Gorden College turned out to be very easy to find right off Exit 17 on 128. Compared to its idyllic campus, MIT is an eyesore (an opinion) built on landfill (a fact).
Sunil and I waited on line while Jessica went to get his brother who had bought the tickets for us. They came and Jessica began the introduction, "Sunil. Eric. ..."
"Noooooo ... You are not ..." Eric looked at me in total disbelief.
"Yes," I looked at him in equally total disbelief, absolute astonishment, and complete shock.
"Nooooo, you are not the one I met in ... " he shook his head.
"Yeaaah. I am the one." Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever see Eric again. I kept saying, "Oh, my God. I can't believe this. Oh, my God. I can't believe this."
I am a rational man. A man of reason. A man who almost aspires to be like Spock. It has served me well in most of my endeavors except perhaps in human relationships. I don't think I could ever become religious, but if I were to imagine a day to become religious, what had just happened would make today a very appropriate day, for nothing else but the sheer magnitude of the coincidence.
Just when I thought my travelogue is over in twenty-seven articles, here comes this amazing new twist. I am not so sure any more whether what that Irish gentleman said was all that unrealistically optimistic.