Me and You

As I wrote on the other blog, I found this Friend Web maker and have been fascinated by it all week. When I first started playing around with it, I found it cool but not altogether super impressive. But then I juiced up the numbers to include everyone I knew on Facebook and the results were a lot more interesting and expansive.

I was really astounded by how well social groups mapped out together. I mean, from one little piece of information -- "Are these two people friends?" -- the program can extrapolate and pull like friends together, and really show relationships and cliques. It basically ninety percent nailed my various social circles. From the core San Diego people, to the huge dance circle (and two tiers of them too), fellowship friends, Chinese school friends, high school friends, work friends, and even small circles like my cousins or last year's San Diego hang out group. And the one-offs were displayed with perfect accuracy.

I mean, none of this describes who your best friends are, or who you feel closest to, but it does highlight who are the important social ties in your life. I mean, generally speaking, your good friends tend to know other people in your life, as you introduce them to each other, and thus they become Facebook friends, and get tied together in the web. This is generally speaking of course. My "best" friends don't quite line up like this -- as I'd imagine many people's don't. I mapped out my five traditional best friend nominees and they are a little bit apart from the center, with one exception. And that too is in line with how my close friendships generally are. My best friends tend to be far removed from my actual social circle, whether through circumstance or choice.

I'm fascinated by this program and want to see everyone's friend webs and study them to see what they reveal and tell me about my friends' friends. After all, that's what so many of my conversations are about. Who are your friends, how did you meet them, who are you close to?

Here's a few lists:

Most friends in common
George (97), James (95), Amit (93), Leslie (88), Hong (85), Lynn (83), Victor (70), Steve (68), Eric A (65), Babbs (65)

Top connectors
George, James, Hong, Victor, Lynn, Amit, Leslie, Lilly, Louis, Nancy

No friends in common
Joyce, Liz, Katharine, Jill, Jen-Marie, Charlie, Minnie, Wilda, Irene K, Tamoy