Sunday, March 25, 2007

6 Degrees of Separation

My friend recently moved to New York for a new job and had very exciting news in her first email report about her new life. Her roommate's girlfriend, who may or may not be a model, was in a photo shoot and her roommate (the boyfriend) was asked to participate in the shoot too...and the photographer was none other than ANTM's Nigel Barker. It's disgusting, I know, but I love ANTM and have watched the show regularly since Season 2 (I caught Season 1 on syndication). I always feel the need to justify spending my time watching this show, but I really don't see how it's different from other reality shows which are also popular - I don't consider it any better or worse than Survivor, Amazing Race, Fear Factor, the Bachelor, etc - it's just about modeling and I find it appealing because 1. it doesn't involve eating disgusting things and 2. it's fundamentally about creating something beautiful.

Some of the girls come across as insipid and there are many a cat-fight, but this is the drama of reality television and it keeps us all coming back for more. We love to hate the stupid and adore our heroes. Incidentally, my hero is whoever thought of putting full episodes on the website - I don't have to set my VCR to record, I don't have to get Tivo or a DVR and I can still watch in my own time where ever or whenever!

At any rate, the point I'm trying to come to is that this 6 degrees of separation really is true! I know my friend, who knows her roommate, who has met Nigel Barker, who knows Tyra. That 4 degrees. I also know someone who has worked with Viggo Mortenson and Kenny Loggins - only 2 degrees. And if you consider who they know, it's a whole world of famous people that I'm within 6 degrees. I am an unabashed fan of the glitz of Hollywood, but I also have incredible discomfort around famous people - I once ran into Danny Glover at the juice bar and left immediately because I couldn't be that close...now, of course, I wish I would have thrown in a little "I'm getting too old for this shit" as I walked out.

So, consider this, how many degrees am I from any one person within the city where I reside? Not far and especially closer considering how many people I've dated in the almost 8 years I've lived here. I probably went on close to 100 first dates in the first year here - I was bored, give me a break - and many since then in addition to joining an online social network that creates real time friendships. I'm constantly running into this situation of knowing someone who knows someone who... Example: I met a girlfriend at the gym and she tells me she's got a date with a really tall hunka hunka burnin' love - really tall? how tall? - 6'7'' - Is his name John? Example: My boyfriend is showing me pictures of his last birthday party and someone in the picture reminds me of someone...Is his name Tom? Example: Having dinner with another girlfriend who tells me her recent x, Joe, is a gas station attendant - is he Korean and drives a blue KIA Spectra? Yes, I'd met, contacted or dated each of the above and it was always weird finding out that we had that person in common. I can only anticipate the Internet creating more of these strange situations and overlaps and I can't figure out if that's a good thing or not.

PS - I did, in fact, change names and details above for privacy sake - maybe totally unnecessary, but really how hard was it and who cares?

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