the strength of weak ties

[the title is] quoting again, from here this time: http://www.amazon.com/The-Defining-Decade-Twenties-Matter-And/dp/0446561754

source: here

This is kinda related to the love section of the previous post - expanding on the need to put yourself physically and metaphorically outside the 3-foot radius of your [geographic/cultural/racial/social] comfort zone for there to be progress in life.

We make friend groups and form communities because they are comfortable and comforting to us. That is their purpose and point, and the fact that all of these words sound soothingly similar - a lullaby of repetitive c's and m's - is no fluke: comfort, community, commitment, communication, commonality. Despite all the fuss over whether life is more like "birds of a feather flock together" or "opposites attract," apparently and ultimately, it comes down to things we have in common with each other when we pick the people in our lives to spend the majority of our time with. It's easier. You don't have to argue or explain as much. They just get you and it feels good. 

But then there is "the strength of weak ties" - the fact that some high percentage figure of people (I am so bad at remembering numerical details) get their jobs through the uncle of a friend of a teacher. And other statistics that no longer remember except as an irresponsible mass of fuzzy, hazy feelings that tell me that all this was very convincing indeed while I was reading the book, I promise you. 

Sorry about all that blahhhhrg -- but the point is that progress and comfort do NOT often go hand in hand. They're just inherently opposite and non-compatible things. Think of growing pains, stretch marks, the first time you learned with your skin cells that fire is hot yes. 

Sometimes it's the odd, not-really-actually-close-to-you-but-weirdly-feel-this-connection kind of frienquaintance that helps you realize the profoundest truths about yourself, about them, about humanity. Mmmm globalizing, generalizing woooOooooOooOhoo!hoo!hoo!

And is it weird that I feel more myself with this person than I have in a looooong, parched time, even more than I have in SO MUCH company of people with whom I have shared much more time and intense heart-stories and even hardships and faith things? 

Yes. 

But maybe no. Because the "weak tie" I share with this person is also a sort of safe space - thanks precisely to all the things we don't share. No friends in common to gossip about, no hobbies to get lost in, becoming Doing Friends (as opposed to Talking Friends), no history to reminisce endlessly, unproductively about, and thus, no expectations to fulfill or not fulfill. No disappointments, no judgments, just surprises and "oh! YOu think this way, cool!"s. It's a relationship brimming with the frontier feeling - all there is to do is the exploration of new lands. The contact and conversation that feels good cause it's a breath of fresh air by the very virtue of being unexplored and unfamiliar and un-common and un-comfortable. This person makes me feel so unencumberedly me. It's a good reminder of how life should feel more often: this feeling of being comfortable in your own skin with a person who you're totally, comfortably uncomfortable with. I wonder where this frienquaintence will go.

But not knowing the answer to this is the purpose and point of this post.